Here, where the world is quiet
by capostrophe
Summary: Years of abuse behind her counter take their toll. Martina hits breaking point. A terrified Joey holds the shattered pieces in his hands. ATEOTD series conclusion, set decades after the show finishes, established Joey/Martina. Trigger warnings: dark themes, mental health issues.
1. Prologue

**Argh I was supposed to be updating the Shifty fic, but the next chapter of it has stalled a bit, because I need to rewatch a couple of episodes for some context (and I don't always like rewatching post series-5 episodes so I've been procrastinating), so hopefully it'll come in the next week or so. I've also been feeling a lot of Joetina love and feels recently, partially because of rewatching early episodes, partly because of the awesome fics you guys have been doing which I have been loving, which means I've been more motivated to work on this Joetina fic and that's all I've done this fortnight, fic-wise. **

**This fic will be the final fic in the _At The End of the Day_-verse and tie up a lot of issues concerning Martina that are brought up in other fics in this 'verse, as most of the other fics I've done have been leading up to it in some way. I've been working on it for seven years and it is massive, and I probably will spend a bit more time fine-tuning it, and finishing off the Shifty fic before I upload more, because there are some things that directly tie in with what happens to Shifty and some things that are a bit dark that I need to make sure nobody hates me for. But I had to get one part of it out my system before my head was cleared to keep going with _Fear of God_, so here be some depressing Joetina. I promise this fic has a happy ending, so please don't hate me.**

**Also, as usual, I own nothing, original Joey in mind, and so on. **

* * *

**Prologue**

**1983**

'Number Twelve!' calls the girl on the end counter, and Joey gets up, trying to keep his confident gait in check, even though he's feeling more and more like a prat as the seconds tick by. He lowers himself into the chair, and the girl eyes him up and down, a look on her face that's half disgust, half trying not to laugh. Joey realises waltzing into the DHSS in all his finery probably wasn't a good idea. He doesn't fit the picture of a destitute trying to sort out his family, and while his new stream of income is keeping his family afloat for now, he's aware it's not stable. Could dry up any minute. They need these allowances. And he might have put his foot in it, ruined his chances. Not exactly what he was going for. Oh, well. He'll push on anyway. Try and ooze a confidence he doesn't feel, charm as best as he can. Bluff his way through the interview, for his family's sake. Shouldn't be too difficult.

He's taken aback when he gets a good look at her, though. He'd assumed they were all older, with their matching frowns and starched shirts, their voices dripping with hatred for the world, but this girl is _ young. _God, she must be younger than him, and yet there's a pain in her face that says she's already been through a lifetime of suffering. How do you get destroyed by life, so young?

An image of his Dad flashes into his brain, disappearing up the street with his hair flying away, Lilo Lil on his mind. Something like that, Joey supposes. Something like that.

'And what have we got here?' the girl's voice is mocking. Her mouth twists, smirking at him, a disbelieving, _are you serious_ smile rather than a friendly one. 'Flash Harry in all his flash gear!'

She eyes him up and down, pointedly, and a part of Joey senses he's losing his dignity pretty quickly. _Why did you wear the leather and gold here, you pillock?!_ His brain screams at him, clashing with the part of him that's, humiliatingly, thinking about sex. She's an attractive girl, beneath that terrible hair and terrible clothing. Her eyes, burning holes of disdain through him like an x-ray, are nonetheless arresting. They knock him back. He's never seen eyes that big on a woman, nor that beautiful (including Roxy's, he thinks with a pang of guilt). They're the colour of the sky when the clouds part after the rain.

'Greetings!'

Not impressed. Her face doesn't change.

'There's clearly nothing we can give you that you don't have already. So why are you here?'

'I,' he tries again, one last-ditch attempt to bring the situation back under his control, play it his way. 'Am Joey. Joey Boswell.'

He holds out her hand to her. She doesn't take it.

'Oh, yeah?' He's never been able to raise one eyebrow at a time. The girl can do it, and she does it now. It's unnerving.

'And you?'

She narrows her eyes, and then takes the hand he's proffering, a strange smile on her face that sets danger bells off in Joey's brain.

'Martina,' she offers, and then her face becomes vicious, and her voice a thousand knives in his back, 'and I'll tell you now, that wall-to-wall winning smile doesn't work on me, so pack it away and get to the reason why you're here.' She squeezes his hand painfully hard, a clear warning, before she releases him.

It's not working. He's never met someone so unimpressed with him before, someone on whom his affable, lovable nature has no effect, who won't let him talk his way out of a corner as he's used to doing. It's a bit on the terrifying side, only he won't let on. It's also a bit on the arousing side, only he _definitely _won't let on about that one.

He tries his best, anyway. Gives her the speech he's been rehearsing, hamming up the dramatics a bit in a desperate attempt to secure some pity, tells her of his family's predicament, his father's sudden departure, their lack of incomes meaning there are now six of them – or seven, if you count poor, aged Grandad next door – all in need of basic comforts. How they have nothing. How they need something.

'Oh, yeah? Have nothin', do yer?'

'Nothing that hasn't come to us by chance, tiny little pittances the wind blew our way in a generous gesture of fate.'

'Oh? And bits of gold just dug themselves out of the ground, melted themselves down and turned into gold rings and chains, did they? Grew little legs and walked to your house and climbed onto you, did they?'

Joey gets the sense this is a mental boxing match, and she's just delivered him a killer blow. He picks the first line that blows through his mind.

'Heirlooms. Reminders of better times.'

'Supposing you sold them? You could live off that lot for a few months.'

'With seven mouths to feed? And when it runs out, what then?'

He suspects he might actually have clawed his way back up a little.

Martina's mouth twists into a thin line. She peels a piece of paper off a stack on her desk and slaps it down in front of him.

'I'll put you down to sign-on on Tuesday. We've got a free slot at ten. Put your details down here and sign there and I'll fix it up for you.'

'Oh, I'm busy on Tuesday.' He's got a bit of work arranged for that time, and he's been promised a good few quid. Not that he's going to tell her that.

'_I beg your pardon!_' If he thought Martina had a general pissed-off-ishness about her, that's nothing compared to how pissed off she is now. Her eyes have doubled in size. Which is attractive in itself, although Joey suspects he's in trouble again, and he should be focussing on that.

'You don't decide you can't be_ bothered_ to sign-on when it's your allocated time!'

'I…' he tries one last time, 'am a Boswell, you see.' He says this with some pride, even though he's not sure where he's going with this point, making it up as he goes along. 'We are an honourable family. We stick together – and if one of my beloved, united family needs help at a certain time, I'm going to be there to offer my support. I'll have to reschedule your little signing appointment.'

She does that single eyebrow raise again, a desirably wicked expression on her face.

'I didn't realise I was in the presence of _royalty._' Sarcasm at its finest, her voice so thick with it it's like poisoned honey. 'I'll have one of our valets come round and park your car.'

'What makes you think I've got a car?'

'You've got everything else. Stands to reason.'

She's right, though. He should probably get round to getting one. Proper decent one, if he can find one. One that says _dignity and style_, not a van like Jack's that says _poor sod._ One that says _don't mess with me, or I can end you_.

Martina hasn't finished.

'_Everyone_ who comes in here thinks they're special. Everyone's got families with their own little sad stories, with so-called important things they need, thinking they're deserving of different treatment from the rest. Everyone thinks they're better than, above being on assistance, and yet they all come crawling in here to me every week to grovel and scrounge for their giro. What makes you think you're any more exempt from the rules than anyone else?'

She's floored him. Somewhere outside the ring, an umpire is counting the seconds. Joey's got nothing.

'You sign-on when I say you sign-on. Not when you think it's convenient for you. If you want something for nothing, that's how it is.' She pushes the form at him again, tapping the bottom of it. '_Sign_.'

Joey feels himself frozen, his mouth the only thing moving, but words not coming out. The umpire's got to ten. He's out of the fight. Defeated.

Joey signs the form she's given him, wishing he had a pen that played music so he could annoy her and bring her down from her pedestal, feeling the humiliation burning on his face. He'll have to try and reschedule his job. Or not turn up to sign-on, although he can't risk the stability of regular money for the family. He'll have to make this work, somehow.

He pushes back the form, still stuck for words, still feeling his face is on fire, and she must have noticed.

'Good day to you,' he mutters, and gets up from the chair quickly, lest he notice her face and see what destroying look she's got on it.

'Eh. Flash.'

He shouldn't turn back, but something compels him to.

She's smirking at him, leaning back in her chair.

'Don't forget to breathe, will yer?'

Joey finally finds his voice, brings out what she's just called his wall-to-wall-winning-smile, the tease strengthening him just enough to pull himself back together.

'Bit hard with you around.' He takes her hand, kisses it. Her hand cream smells nice. Roses, Joey thinks.

'Oh, _good.'_ She snatches her hand away. 'A few more visits here and we'll have asphyxiated you out of the need for a giro.'

And she laughs. Well, in the broadest sense of the word. She's got her hand over her mouth, trying not to let him see her doing it.

And a stray, rebellious thought comes across Joey's brain, one that guilts him enormously, because he's still holding on hope that Roxy's phone call ending it might have been Billy getting it wrong, that they can still work out, that she might still one day take him back. But it's one that at least gets him through the rest of another struggle of a day trying to hold his family together while they readjust.

_Now, that's the sort of girl I'd like to marry. _

He leaves grinning from ear to ear, in spite of himself.

Joey buys a 1950s classic Jaguar the following week, a lithe, black bird of a car that glides like nothing he's ever experienced before, that cost him fifteen thousand pounds, that _oozes_ style and ill-earned money, and deliberately parks it out the front of the DHSS as she's leaving for the day. Just to see the look on her face.

It doesn't disappoint.

* * *

**2010**

It's their fifteenth wedding anniversary today.

Joey hasn't forgotten, but he doesn't know if he should say anything. If he should pick up his phone and ring her. Text her, even.

Fifteen years married. Nearly thirty he's known her, give or take a couple of years.

She's seen him from the beginning of his glory days, when he was still building his image, a reaction to having to step up and take care of his family, when he hadn't quite got the suave act down yet but was trying to shape himself into something strong and confident enough to get through it all. She's held his heart in her hands while he healed from a bitter divorce from Roxy, and the loss of a child who meant as much to him as if he were his own, and she's put it back together again.

He's seen her tease and taunt him in the DHSS (then DSS, then DWP), her sharp words and forbidding stare hiding suffering she doesn't want the world to see. He's seen her struggle through her multiple attempts to make things work with Shifty, eventually taking hold of her heart when she let Shifty go, caressing both it and her trust back to health, loving her into a truer sense of security than she's felt in years.

They've brought up a spectacular daughter together (or at least got her to thirteen so far without anything too bad happening, apart from the fact that she's a bit on the obnoxious side).

Today should mean something. They should be celebrating, Joey thinks, curling in on himself in bed, reaching across into the empty space where Martina should be, stroking it as he wishes he could be stroking her. It shouldn't be like this.

She doesn't remember. Or perhaps she does, but she's got other things on her mind.

She's not even here.

Joey doesn't know where she is, but he suspects he knows what she's doing. And it could either save her, or it could destroy the last shreds of her.

God, he hopes she manages. That she comes back to him, alive and well. That he doesn't get another phone call from a morgue somewhere, to inform him that another person he loves more than life itself has died in a fiery wreck of their own making.

And on the morning of his fifteenth wedding anniversary, Joey finds himself shaking and crying, his limbs wrapped around Martina's pillow, unsure whether it's from hurt, guilt, desperation or fear.

Because Martina is gone, and he doesn't know where, and he's got nearly three decades' worth of memories looping through his head, the wonderful times mingling and meshing with the hard ones, with the ones where Martina was struggling, where another shard of guilt-glass pierces his heart and reminds him that he knew. He knew all along what she was going through. That he needed to step up and take the reins from her, and get her the help she needed. And he didn't. Because he wanted her to do it herself. What a daft bastard.

And the good memories assault him, because he wishes they were still going on now, and the bad ones assault him with reminders that he's a failure. That he failed her.

* * *

'_This is it! This is the bit I like,' Martina says, as Joey starts to spout his story again, raising one finger, a smug smile on her face, and then she presses a button and a sad violin song fills the DHSS._

_And Joey wants to grin, laugh, maybe flick her mouth with his finger because her face looks far too serious and he'd love to try and force a laugh from her, too. But instead he goes along with it, adopts a mournful tone, goes through the spiel about the suit for Jack and Billy again._

_He's running out of material, though, and he wants to add to the tease, names the composer of the piece that's playing, throws in the dates of his birth and death, hums along to the song, until he's successfully annoyed her enough to snap off the tape recorder and listen to him again. _

_God, but he loves winding her up. And he loves that, for whatever reason, she's starting to enjoy winding him up, too. _

* * *

'_Throat-cutting, wrist-slashing, tablet-swallowing, stick-my-finger-in-an-electric-socket despair,' Martina says when Joey checks on her after Shifty's letdown, and Joey panics, even as he teases her about her hair in an attempt to snap her out of it._

'_Have you ever been in love, Mister Boswell?' Martina asks him, reaching for him with her words, in desperate need of comfort, reassurance, _something _to hold onto_, _and he responds, gives her what she needs, settles her out of her suicidal comments, which he hopes to Heaven she didn't mean. _

_She's okay by the time he leaves her, but Joey still worries. _

_Worries how many times she's had thoughts like that before, and how many times she might again. _

* * *

'_I – have—been – caught – by – the – tax – man,' _ _Joey says dramatically when she asks him to repeat his bad news. He should be angry by how overjoyed she is at this turn of events, but he can't help being brightened by her evilly astounded grin._

'_Oh, God.' She's practically orgasming in her seat. 'It's better than food. Money. Sex. He's been caught by the tax man!'_

_Her reaction is amusing enough to Joey that, even in his dire situation, he buys her lunch. _

* * *

'_I suppose,' Martina confides in him one day, when they've reached a level of friendship close enough that they can mock Shifty's _friendly soul mother_ excuse for everything together, 'if you follow that theory, it does explain a lot. My childhood was miserable. I had one parent who was a gambler, one who cared about nothing, and neither of them cared about _me_ – I had an alcoholic brother who's still on the run for robbery; a bad influence, but I loved 'im all the same and then he left – I suppose all that's why my life is so hopeless. Why _I'm _ so hopeless.'_

_Joey feels his blood run cold at this comment. 'You're not hopeless, sweetheart! Don't think that!'_

_He spends the rest of his life trying to convince her otherwise – but he's not sure if he ever dislodges it from somewhere in her brain. _

* * *

'_I love you…Joey,' she says, standing out on Kelsall Street with him, arms around his waist, tears in her eyes, having messed him around back and forth before finally making up her mind about him. Calling him by his first name for the first time, without drunkenness or mockery involved. She rests her head against his chest, relaxing for the first time in what must be months now, visibly secure in his embrace, and Joey's heart soars and sings. She's finally let him in. And he's not letting her shut him out again. _

'_Tell me that just one more time,' he whispers._

* * *

_Joey proposes to her four times. Once when she wakes up in the morning, once with a ring she dubs 'hideous,' once in the DSS, and once in the middle of having sex on her sofa (bad idea, that one)._

_And he's rejected four times._

_He takes her down the docks and asks her to get a house with him, and is rejected for that too._

'_Everyone in my life, Joey, _everyone_ I've loved has either abandoned me or hurt me again. I'm not puttin' meself on the line only for somethin' like that to happen yet again.'_

'_I won't.'_

'_I don't know that, do I?'_

'_You _do_ know that,' Joey says firmly. He's not going to let her give up on their future this easily, and he keeps working on it, keeps her close, keeps reassuring her. _

_By the end of that day, she's looked up at him, eyes big and blue and trusting, and asked _him_ to marry _her_. _

* * *

'_Pretendin' to be sick,' Joey teases, when Martina wakes up one morning when they're newly married and decides on a whim to wag work to be with him. 'Tsk. Naughty, naughty girl. Not up to catchin' out cheats, then?'_

'_You've corrupted me. And besides, what's the point in chasin' down the cheats when I know exactly where the ringleader is?'_

_She looks so beautiful and sleepy and sexy, and that comment just pushes him over the line into an ecstasy he can't contain._

* * *

'_I did warn you, luv,' Martina says gently, combing her hands through his hair as he rambles on, hysterical about Roxy's latest ploy, about her inability to stop tormenting him even though he's remarried and moved on, because he still loves her son. _

'_Don't gloat.'_

'_I'm not. I'm just sayin'. She knows that boy is yer weak spot, and if she makes you think you have a good hope of getting 'im back, she can own you for life.'_

_It shocks Joey to his core sometimes how much she understands. Whatever she's been through, whether it's Shifty or the part of her life before she met any of them, she understands him better than anyone else ever can. _

'_He's not my only weak spot,' he says, reaching his head up to kiss her, overwhelmed by his gratitude for her strength when he needs her the most._

* * *

'_We made that.' Joey is in awe, looking at the small bundle of Belle in Martina's arms, the doctors around them still taking the screen down from across her middle. 'I mean…I know not really, but…'_

'_I know what you mean, love,' Martina has never smiled so beautifully, or so authentically. 'I know what you mean.'_

_And Joey looks at the both of them and he's never felt a love so strong as in that moment._

* * *

'_He doesn't like me, Joey!' Martina lets out a shriek as Edgar II in his big, hulking glory ambles up to her, pushing his snout up her skirt. 'I'm gonna end up dead.'_

'_He does, look! He fancies you, see!' _

_Joey has never seen Martina irrationally afraid before, but God, if he'd known she was scared of big dogs, he'd probably have bought one years ago, if only for the entertainment value. She's got up onto a kitchen chair now, looking terrified, Edgar II reaching up to nip and nuzzle around her ankles. _

'_Oh, don't be daft, sweetheart! Nothin' to be worried about!'_

'_I'll probably wake up one morning to find 'im eatin' me face off.'_

_Joey roars with laughter then, her uncharacteristic histrionics too much for him to keep a straight face, and he can't resist grabbing her around the waist, pulling her forcibly off the chair. She clings to him, though the aggression in it suggests she'd dearly love to murder him, if she weren't so panic-stricken he was going to drop her. _

'_Watch out! __I'm gonna feed you to 'im, Martina!' Joey teases. 'I'm gonna feed you to 'im!'_

'_Don't you dare!' she shrieks. 'I'm tellin' you now, Joey,' she clings tighter to him as he tries to lower her in front of the dog, kicking him in the shin, 'as soon as your back's turned, I'm getting rid of that thing!'_

_In spite of her dramatics, it only takes three days for her to warm to the idea of having a big dog around the house. Joey returns home from a late-night job, smiling when he sees Edgar II stretched out across the foot of their bed, Martina asleep in it without a care in the world._

* * *

'_How 'bout this,' Joey says, pouring Baileys into Martina's glass, snorting at the mess of gingerbread on the table that was supposed to be a Christmas surprise for their daughter, but has turned instead into a war between them, 'we put the pieces together again, and if it gets knocked down, whoever's fault it is has to drink.'_

'_That sounds like a recipe for disaster.'_

'_Worried it might be you?'_

_He has her there and he knows it. She enjoys their little competitions too much. She always has. _

'_Course not.'_

'_Am I on, then?'_

'_Oh, you're on, Mister Boswell,' that wicked smile is so attractive he's tempted to concede so he can shag her over the table instead, only he doesn't, because he wants to win this, 'you're on.'_

_They get spectacularly pissed. Martina still cringes at that memory, but it's one of his favourites._

* * *

' _I just thought, Joey,' Martina's voice is soft, fragile, and it's worse than her usual hard tones and forbidding stare, 'that perhaps one day you'd wake up and realise that we were enough. Me and Annabelle.'_

_Joey feels the guilt chewing through his insides. He's wanted to find Oscar Hartwell for so long, he's been blinded to what's going on in front of him. Oscar, who had once hero-worshipped him, who he's missed for so many years, who he'd vowed he'd contact when he turned eighteen._

_Oscar, who has, heartbreakingly, grown into another Roxy. Who contacts him only when he wants money. Who's conned Joey out of five thousand quid – five thousand quid that they could do with, right now. _

_Joey reaches out, touches Martina's arm. She shrugs it away. _

'_Why weren't we, Joey?'_

_He's wounded her deeper than he realised – and it's going to take a long time for her to get over this. _

_Joey doesn't know what to say._

* * *

'_Bad day?' Joey slides into bed beside her, pulling her against him, brushing her hair from her face. _

_He can tell when the DWP is the cause of her problems, and it is now. There are marks around her wrist which suggest someone's grabbed her to threaten her, she's shaking, which suggests the threat was graphically violent, as they are more frequently these days. _

_Martina nods, curling into him, her body relaxing from his touch, though he can still feel an undercurrent of tension running through her. _

'_Leave it, Martina. Just walk away from it.' He kisses her forehead. 'You know I make enough for both of us.'_

_He feels her tense again. _

'_I'm not leavin' my job, Joey.' It's an argument they've had a thousand times, when she's come home in tears because a dying old destitute can't be given anything and cries, while a shedload of nineteen-year-old liars walk away grinning with money they didn't earn and don't need, when someone's struck her across the face, shooting the messenger, when someone from inside the DWP has seen her outside of it and hurled verbal abuse at her from across the road, or in the park when she's trying to enjoy herself and ruined her day. _

'_One of us needs to do something _honest_, love,' Martina insists, the one straw man argument she has to cover up the fact that she's just too afraid of change, 'for Annabelle.'_

_'You could do summat else honest. Anything!'_

_'I'm no good at anything else.'_

_Which means she just can't be arsed to try. Or she's too afraid of the consequences if she fails, but doesn't want to admit it._

_Joey holds her to him, sighing, and wishing she'd be less stubborn._

* * *

'_Sometimes, Joey,' Martina says, her voice and eyes distant, 'I feel so far away from you I don't know what to do.'_

* * *

'_I love you, Martina,' he says, pitifully, desperately, before she gets out the car._

'_I know.' Her voice is flat. She didn't actually say the words back. But it's all she can muster right now, and Joey holds onto it as tightly as he can. _

_It's the last thing she says to him before she disappears from his sight._

* * *

There have been good times, and there's been so much love he's fit to burst with it. But there were so many signs he saw and ignored, or saw, worried about, and then pushed to the back of his mind.

And he's watched Martina slowly deteriorate over the years, her threshold for what she can take slowly lowering until she seems to be treading water every day, on the edge of a breakdown every moment.

Joey isn't sure exactly what the final straw was, what pushed her over the edge, but now she's gone over it, and he has never felt so helpless. He should have helped her. He should have done something, and now it's too late. She's lost. If not physically (she seemed to know where she was going), in her mind she is.

Joey thinks of her beautifully wicked smile, that he's come to know and love, and then remembers her expressionless face the last time he saw her empty, glassy eyes staring back at him, and wonders how he could have let things get to this point.


	2. Doubtful dreams of dreams

**This fic has stalled a bit, because my own mental health has plummeted, which, while that's handy for being in the mindframe to write depressed!Martina, has made it a bit hard to go through it all and edit. I've finally had some time to sit and edit though, so here's a new chunk for the long weekend. **

**Housekeeping: this does tie in with ATEOTD (chronology on forums) and also with Martina's backstory, _Leaping out of the bath shouting next_, which I have temporarily taken down because I want to rewrite it at some point, but if you don't remember it, it was more or less just Martina and her brother being dysfunctional, and how blind she was to everything he did up until he disappeared.**

**Disclaimer: This fic is not meant to give any particular message about mental health, speak for anyone in real life, claim any treatment is superior to any other, claim everyone's experiences are the same, because everybody is different, any of that. I cannot stress that enough. A lot of experiences reflected in this fic are drawn from personal experience or the experience of others around me, and this fic is just exploring how Martina's experiences played out in this particular headcanon (I can't watch Martina's scenes in Bread without coming to the conclusion that she's depressed, and that colours this headcanon. It was only a minor plot point in the original ATEOTD fic, because that was mainly focussed on her and Joey getting together, but it's always been part of her characterisation in this universe. )**

**Credit where credit is due: a) I don't own Bread, and b) I don't own the poem Adrian recites, which is A. C. Swinburne's **_**The Garden of Proserpine.**_

_**Trigger warnings: mental health, mentions of suicide, mentions of alcoholism, medical issues. **_

* * *

**I**

**Doubtful dreams of dreams**

**2010**

**(Two weeks earlier)**

Martina can't remember what she was dreaming of – only that it made her scream when she woke, and now she can't get back to sleep. It's dead quiet and pitch dark the way she prefers it, the blockout curtains Joey bought her doing their job, she's a comfortable temperature and in a comfortable position, and yet, while her body is relaxing, her mind can't follow suit.

The past few weeks have been rough for them – particularly for Joey; Jack's been back in hospital again, undergoing an operation after his second heart attack – and though she's managed to be there for him, help him get through it, it's been harder than ever to keep herself together. To pretend she's all right enough to be what he needs.

She doesn't understand the maelstrom in her mind. She's not even that close to Jack. She suspects it's less to do with him, and more to do with shouldering one disaster after another of late, buckling under the weight of it all. This seems like one thing too many, and her defences, weakened by everything else, have crumbled, and there's nothing she can do to keep a tidalwave of memories from careening around her brain.

She's treading water, breathing it into her lungs, drowning a little bit at a time.

She stares at the shadowy ceiling, sifting through the heap of thoughts burying her, each one a weight she's carried, the load mounting up over the years.

Her father throwing her brother out she was thirteen, because he'd committed one crime too many in his quest for money for drink (hypocritical bastard– he gambled away just as much himself). Her Mam not stopping him, insisting it was _for the best_. She's never been able to forgive them, even when Joey's urged her to consider things from their perspective.

Roger disappearing from her life when she was twenty, compelled by his own misdeeds to flee, not even stopping to consider the hole he ripped from her when he went. After three years of taking care of him, feeling, for once, that she'd been happy even if it meant paying his bills and bailing him out and picking up whiskey bottles off the floor, she'd been left riddled with emotional bullet wounds she's never recovered from.

Dancing the same dance with a handful of lovers, falling for Roger clones repeatedly because they reminded her of her brother, of what she was missing. Thinking Shifty was a bright spot in her life, discovering he fit the same mould, ignoring her common sense and giving into dysfunctional familiarity until she'd found herself staring out the window of her flat, terrifyingly aware that she was on the verge of giving up, that if she didn't get away from Shifty, the only alternative left was just slipping off the window ledge and ending it.

Finding an unexpected dependability in Joey Boswell, but antagonising him at every turn, thwarting his attempts to love and reassure her. Rejecting him repeatedly until she'd nearly lost him, refusing to marry him until he'd promised a hundred times over he wouldn't leave her, fighting him over having children in case he used them as a replacement for Roxy's son Oscar. Biting his head off every time he suggests she look for a job that doesn't leave her with so many scars. Wondering, worrying, if one day, he'll have enough of her taking everything out on him, and disappear.

Realising, when he allowed Oscar Hartwell back into their lives only to betray them, that in spite of his best efforts to convince her otherwise, she will never be able to trust him. That his relentless promises are not enough to keep her secure in him.

And then, after that tenuous bubble of happiness shattered and left her struggling to stand, Shifty's death had come down on her like a tonne of bricks, forcing her to her knees.

She's been on her knees for the past six years, barely getting by, and throughout it all, the constant artillery of complaints, punches thrown and insults hollered in her face from the other side of her counter have kept her down, taken with her a bit more energy with which she might have fought back. And perhaps it's the combination of all these things that have allowed her to be crushed by Jack's situation, or perhaps it's the thought that, somewhere out there, she's got a brother as well, and has no idea if he's alive and well, or the fact that Shifty's dead and she can't bear to lose another person, or it's just that she can't cope with one more piece of bad news, but she's been floored, stomped into the concrete, and she can't force herself off the ground.

Everything is overwhelming her at present, and it's invading her mind every time her head hits the pillow.

She has to go to work tomorrow, has to get through a whole day of fending off abuse, playing the villain for the greater good, and she's not even going to be rested to do it.

Joey comes in around two, goes through his usual performance of trying to undress and navigate the darkened room without making any noise.

'No point,' Martina grumbles.

'Again?' She can hear the frown in his voice. The bed shifts, Joey's arms snake around and under her.

'Geroff.'

She doesn't want to be touched right now, even if it's an attempt to soothe her. Joey's overheating her, and she's tempted to elbow him off. He's not in her good books, though she can't explain why. He's not there enough. His there-ness is suffocating. These facts contradict one another and are both true nonetheless.

'Okay, sweetheart, okay,' Joey lets go of her. 'What's wrong, Martina? This is the fourth night running you've not slept properly.'

'_Is it?_ I wasn't aware of that blindingly obvious fact, so _thank you_ for bring it to my attention.'

To his credit, or perhaps his detriment, Joey is unfazed by her snapping at him.

'Sweetheart, that's bad, even for you.' He strokes her shoulder.

'Joey, will you _get off?!_ I don't want your 'ands all over me when I'm trying to sleep!'

Joey murmurs an apology, turns away from her, sighs himself to sleep and leaves her awake and miserable.

_Oh, God, you could lose him if you go on like this_.

She tries to push the thought away but it stays, another nasty voice mingling with the vicious memories dancing in her head.

* * *

It unsettles Joey, being in a hospital, even when he's just here for a cheery visit. Birch Ward isn't a bad place, and Jack is out of the woods, recovering from a successful operation, simply awaiting discharge now, and he should be thankful. But that bloody disinfectant smell is bringing back vivid memories of Grandad attached to drips, and Shifty in a cold metal tray, and possibilities that frighten him just as much as the past.

Yes, Jack's got a bit more weight on him than he should, and yes, Joey supposes, the genetic predisposition was always there, but hearing his_ younger_ brother has suffered from a heart attack was a frightening wakeup call. God, he's glad they didn't lose him. Joey remembers the sheer terror of receiving that phone call, hearing Shifty had deliberately caused the horrific car crash that had killed him. Of seeing him there, cold and lifeless, and having to hold back his tears and vomit and force his trembling hand to sign to acknowledge it really was Shifty lying dead in that drawer.

Joey had gone through two years of tumultuous therapy to cope with Shifty's death. Martina had refused to go with him, and as a result, Joey is more or less at peace with it, while the torment of it sank down inside Martina, another weight holding her soul down, an addition to the many she hasn't addressed over the years. She has a haunted look in her eyes more often than not, and he's not sure how many more emotional upheavals she can take. She's been faltering more often over the past few years than she used to, took Jack's situation almost has hard as his siblings have.

In spite of that, she's been bloody fantastic. She always is when there's a family crisis, is an astounding pillar of strength for Joey. He just wonders though, after seeing her try to hide the havoc Shifty's death wreaked upon her, whether she's just pretending to be strong, because he needs her to be.

He can't dwell on that now. He has to keep reminding himself – he is just here to brighten Jack's mood now. Everything is all right, everyone can calm down now; the worst is over. He'd better get in there, do the best he can to cheer his brother up, before he's kicked out again. He probably hasn't got long, before that frosty-faced nurse shows up.

(_Are you _all_ one family?_ The ward sister had asked in disbelief, finding twenty or so people still clustered outside Jack's room after she'd issued her _family only_ decree. Joey's smooth _we are united for one of our own_ hadn't got them anywhere, and she's been determined to keep the number of visitors down, with the result that they're all rostering themselves an hour at a time, surreptitiously switching over before she can notice.)

Jack's sitting up in bed today, with the best smile Joey's seen on him in a while now.

'Look at you, then, son! The colour's comin' back to yer face! You'll be takin' on the world soon.'

'Ah, cut it, you. All day long I've 'ad one or other of yer givin' it all that about how great I'm doin'. As if there's nothin' else to talk about! Tell me summat normal.'

'Normal,' Joey says uneasily, sitting down in the chair by his brother's bedside. 'Right.'

He wants a distraction, and Joey does his best to oblige.

'How's your Belle, then?'

'Little terror,' Joey grins. 'You know. Thinks she knows more about the world than God Himself.'

'Welcome to the teenage years,' Jack grins back. 'Our Ryan's more or less grown out of all that, thank God. Fun's just startin' for you.'

'It's already doin' Martina's head in. She's fighting an uphill battle tryin' to keep Belle from swearin' her head off every five minutes.'

'Been there. Speaking of, how_ is_ the Little Dragon?' Jack's nickname for Martina, more affectionate now than it used to be. 'Busy tramplin' dreams and unleashin' terror from behind her counter, is she?'

'Yeah.' He answers with a smile in his voice, but he wishes she wasn't. He wishes every day that she wasn't, that she'd acknowledge the significant role it plays in her tenuous mental state, but it's no good trying to convince her.

'Me Dad's legacy, eh?' Jack says, patting his bandaged chest after their shallow bit of chit chat turns into a long silence. 'Out of everything, why'd I 'ave to be the one who inherited the faulty ticker?'

His comment makes Joey think, briefly, about the legacy Freddie Boswell left them all with. Adrian is somewhat tone deaf to the plight of others, banging on about the Arts degree he's doing while in the background, Irenee works long hours as a sales rep to put food on the table and his kids fend for themselves. Aveline inherited Freddie's inability to cope with the domestic. Billy (no, _Bill_, he insists they call him now) inherited their father's flighty ways, waltzing in and out of the lives of various women while never leaving Julie Jefferson alone to recover from him.

And then there's Joey. He's got his Dad's devious streak, that's obvious. Has improved on it, even. He's done well for himself in the underworld, and more recently, from carefully-concealed cybercrime, laundering enough money to support a family while still pretending he's unemployed and claiming Jobseekers. He's successful, but devious all the same, even though he doesn't actually _need_ to be. There's less urgency to resort to whatever means possible to support his family. And Joey realises, guiltily, that he likes being devious too much to give it up.

Dodgy inheritances, all.

'Eh, it's gonna be all right now, you know,' Joey tries to slip on the big brother gloves again. 'The operation's all over and done with, you'll be home tomorrow…Leonora's talkin' about gettin' you on a healthy diet; you'll be chargin' around before you know it!'

'Oh, God. A healthy diet. She's gonna finish me off, isn't she?'

Jack's trying to joke around, but it isn't really working when he's got a drip in his arm and a slightly glazed look on his face.

'Ah, it won't be all that bad, will it? Leonora and Ryan waitin' on yer hand and foot…twelve weeks, they said, and you'll be good as new.'

'Oh, God. Twelve weeks.'

Joey realises he's not making things any better.

'Look, son…' he tries.

'All right, that's _enough!_' the ward sister is back. 'You are _overwhelming_ him. He's not supposed to have this many visitors after open heart surgery! One after the other, non-stop, all day…he needs to _rest!_'

Joey shoots Jack an apologetic look as he's escorted to the door.

'He's gonna be okay, isn't he?'

'He'll be perfectly all right – _provided_ he doesn't have a _stampede_ of guests interfering with his recovery!' She sounds pointed, irritated, and so Joey meekly desists, lets her propel him out.

* * *

'Now listen 'ere, you – '

If Martina's daughter ever uttered the four-letter word this youth has just hurled at her, she'd be washing Annabelle's mouth out.

She remembers the days of _little child of joy,_ from the likes of Mister Wilson, back in the old DHSS, _frosty-faced cow_ from the housewives with their never-ending list of stolen washing. The insults have got filthier over the years, people less afraid now to say what they really think.

She'd eye-roll it off, tell him to think of something more original to say, but today, Martina hasn't got the patience.

'D'you not understand the life or death situation of the workin' man? If I can't get me car fixed, I can't deliver the goods to me customers, and if I can't do that, I can't go on livin', can I?'

Oh, he's pushing her patience today.

Jack's in hospital recovering from open heart surgery, and she's stuck here when she should be there, Shifty's death has bubbled back into her mind, and this jumped up little bastard has the nerve to complain about _life or death_ because he can't get repairs done on a car he doesn't need.

'Couldn't you use a bicycle?'

'And how am I supposed to carry –'

She's heard these excuses so many times; has a counterargument for every single one.

'– a wheelbarrow, then.'

'And how would I look pushin' a wheelbarrow around?'

'If it's _life or death_, then surely how you look is secondary to yer own survival?'

She gets a few more lovely words thrown her way. Martina grits her teeth and waits til the onslaught is over.

'Mister Harman – '

'I wouldn't expect you to understand. Unfeeling robots they put behind these counters– I wouldn't expect you to care about the likes of us, struggling to survive – '

_Struggling to survive_ is just too much. Martina gets up quietly, starts closing her counter up. Her claimant looks up, surprised, keeps on ranting, _where d'you think you're going, I'm not finished yet_, but she takes no notice, disappears out the back for a break she's not supposed to have.

She ends up in the smoking area, even though she doesn't smoke, breathing in the stale air that signifies someone's just put one out and wondering if perhaps she's missed a trick not taking up the habit. Wonders briefly if it's calming, or perhaps uplifting. If it makes you feel anything other than grey, with hints of black thrown in.

Every day is the same; a mire of heavy clouds and compassion fatigue born of seeing too many deserving cases suffer and too many undeserving cases take it all, and too many of both camps taking out their frustrations on her. There comes a point when you have to stop caring for your own sake. Martina spends most of her time after thirty years here speaking in a monotone, only bothering to bring out her sarcasm or anger if she's forced on the defensive.

She can usually take off her mask as she's leaving for the day, push it all back inside her. She'll go home to Joey and Annabelle and bloody Fat Edgar, their overweight Alsatian, and focus all of her mind on them, and keep the demons at bay.

Sometimes, though.

Sometimes the abuse is too much.

She's still got the scars on her wrist from the woman with long nails who'd grabbed her arm, twisting it roughly as she shouted in her face. She's still got the cigarette burn on her forearm from a bloke who hadn't taken kindly to his claim being rejected. She gets a ringing in her ears every so often from being hollered at from close to.

The invisible scars are worse. Being told she's personally responsible for someone's grandmother's death (she knows it's not true, but the words stick just the same), being called every name in the book when the GFC hit and there was only so much she could do for the masses that swarmed in. And whoever graffitied _Arbeit Macht Frei_ on her desk, along with a great black spray paint swastika, was just taking things too far. That one cut deep. She fancies she can still see it, throbbing beneath the fresh paint on her counter, still there, still taunting her.

And today it's too much, because something, whether it be Jack himself or just a cumulative assault, has forced a crack in her emotional vault wide open.

She leans against the wall, fingers clenched tightly around her mobile in the hope that clutching it will make it ring, and it'll be Joey on the other end.

She remembers the days when what she dreaded most was an appearance from Joey Boswell. When she dreaded the word _greetings_ coming her way, followed by him striding in with his leather and gold and bleached hair, when she seethed as he flaunted his illegal earnings in front of her, teased her, sparked a powerful lust within her even as she hated him.

Sixteen years with Joey Boswell have wiped any fantasy version of him from her mind. He's not as infallible as he thinks, nor diabolical as she'd once believed – he's a mere mortal, with a bit of an ego and a moody streak when it suits him. He's as vain as his sister, dressing too young for his age (is there a male expression for mutton dressed as lamb? Because he's it), showing off about the _four_ Jags he now owns. He's as hypocritical as they come, _still_ insisting vegetarianism and leather are compatible. He can be mind-numbingly shallow (to the point where he's come over all passionate about ridiculous things, such as insisting white gold is the world's worst invention because it doesn't '_look gold, so how will anyone know you're wearing gold?'_) He can be a bit too touchy-feely with his affection, invading her personal space more often than she'd like.

And yet she loves him so much she thinks sometimes she might shatter from it.

And together they've produced a child. She can't resent Joey's dodgy benefit schemes anymore, because without him irritating her all those years, she wouldn't have her little family now, a silver lining on the perpetual cloud of her existence.

Belle is visibly her daughter. She may be tall and lanky like Joey, she may have Joey's Roman nose, but she's got Martina's eyes and mouth, Martina's disapproving stare, Roger's ginger hair, Martina's long fingers and small ears. A voice very similar to Martina's, as well.

But when Annabelle opens her mouth, she's obviously Joey's daughter. Verbose, bit of a smartarse, cunning, talking circles around you until you give in. Up to her neck in devious little schemes of her own. Bloody obnoxious little mare.

And yet Martina loves her so much she thinks her heart might burst sometimes.

But on dark days, she looks at them, her mobster husband and wannabe-mobster daughter, happier in their risky schemes than she has _ever_ been in fifty years of careful living, and wonders what would happen if she just…faded away into nothing, and left them to it. Wandered off into the mists and unmoored them from her. Stopped holding them back.

Back from what, she wonders. She isn't sure. They _love_ her. She has more of a family than she'd ever hoped to have, and she does appreciate them. She just wonders, even now, if it's too good to be true. Joey's already proven, by contacting Oscar, that she's not enough for him. And she's already pushed him to his limit so many times, she wonders if somewhere down the track, there's a last straw for him that'll end what they have.

She should be with him now. She should bloody well be with him, and she doesn't know if she wishes she were there to support him, or to assuage her own insecurities, but she wishes it all the same.

Martina momentarily considers how much trouble she'd be in should she simply slip away now and leg it to the hospital before anyone notices she's gone.

She doesn't, though. She doesn't go back inside, either.

She just stands there, inhaling the last of the tobacco scent in the air until she can't smell it anymore.

* * *

It takes Joey a while to spot his silver Jaguar XJ – it's a bit unremarkable, compared to his other three Jags, but it suited his mood today – and when he gets there, he sits in it for a moment, debriefing.

Good visit, Jack in high spirits considering – a lot to be thankful for. He shoots off a few texts – to Aveline, who's taking first shift tomorrow, to Adrian, urging him to update their Mam, to Martina, just to reassure her, to Belle, to make sure she got home okay.

He's about to start the engine and head off when his mobile bleats back at him, and Joey immediately reaches for it.

It's not Aveline, though, or Adrian, or Martina, or Belle.

It's Oscar Hartwell, and seeing his name pop up next to the little envelope icon makes Joey's heart sink.

Oscar, whom he loves almost as much as Annabelle.

Oscar, who did so much damage to the family he fought hard to build, in such a short time.

Oscar, who, like Roxy, seems only to turn up to kick him when he's down, to add another problem to his already suffocating pile.

He doesn't want to open the message, but something compels him to.

_I need your help._

Joey's hand shakes. He tries once, twice, to send a reply, but he can't for the life of him work out what to write. Has no idea if this is a genuine plea for help, or another ploy for sympathy with a self-centred end goal in mind.

Not now. He's got enough on his plate, trying to get back to a sense of normality after everything that's just happened – the last thing he needs is another upheaval tipping the scales.

He pockets his mobile, decides he'll deal with it later, and heads home.

* * *

A text reading _Jack's doing well_ comes through from Joey at quarter to five, and Martina breathes for what feels like the first time all day, gets the bus home without clocking off, and then just sits on the sofa, unsure why she's not processing anything.

Joey's reassurance isn't enough. The fact that Jack's still improving isn't enough. The ground still feels unsteady beneath her feet, her lungs still feel choked with the salt water of a thousand grievances. She can't close that door again, now it's opened – it's as if one blow too many has diminished her ability to push everything behind a wall and leave it there.

She breathes slowly, evenly, lets her eyes follow the pattern on the wallpaper. Listens to the steady rhythm of the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. Realises none of these things are calming her, just hypnotising her back into her own head, into the blackness within. She casts around for a distraction.

Edgar IV waddles in, barely able to breathe from the exertion, and flops down on the floor at her feet. Bloody fat bastard. Joey and Belle spoil him something awful, putting out a bowl every time he whines, and she's never seen an Alsatian so bloody greedy, in nearly a decade of Joey owning them (and claiming them as 'guard dogs'). He's a defective dog.

'Don't look at me like that,' she grumbles, when Edgar's nose inclines in her direction, clearly after something to get his chops round. 'I'm not gonna feed yer.'

'Starvin' him, you are,' Belle drawls from across the room, and Martina raises her head to regard her daughter. She's in Joey's leather armchair, legs slung over the arm, looking far too relaxed for someone who has at least two essays to do that Martina knows of.

Martina resists the urge to roll her eyes. Belle looks absurd, with her hair all different lengths and her daft long fringe and thick black rings of eyeliner round her eyes like soot. That's another thing she's picked up from Joey; taking her personal style to the extreme. Belle had laughed at old photos of Joey from the '80s, horribly blond with an earring, unaware that this God-awful emo look is exactly the same sort of thing; a hideous trend that will be embarrassing in years to come.

And she's playing on her phone, undoubtedly up to something, and _not _up to what she's supposed to be.

Martina aims a suspicious glance in her direction.

'Haven't you got schoolwork to do?'

'Already taken care of,' Annabelle slouches even further back in the armchair, her hair cascading over the other arm. She looks too casual for Martina's liking.

'Oh, yeah? Where is it, then?'

'Completed and neatly arranged in me satchel.' The answer is smooth. Rehearsed.

'What did you 'ave to do, then?'

She pinpoints the moment she catches her out. Belle hasn't thought that far ahead.

'Oh, just…this and that.'

A sigh whistles out from Martina's chest.

'Don't try and fob me off – you haven't done it.'

'It's not relevant to me future,' Belle protests.

'Ex-_cuse_ me! What future is your education supposedly not relevant for?!'

'Organised crime.'

Cheeky little cow; she's smirking, deliberately being facetious. Not that that's any surprise, right little Boswell that she is. She's always been this way, and though it annoys Martina no end, she can't help being endeared to it.

Today, though, it's all Martina can do to keep calm. She's had more than she can take. And she doesn't think she can act normal, parental, for much longer.

'If I hear any more answers like that from you, I'll bat you round the earhole. _Go and do it, Annabelle_. I'm sick of having this argument with you_ every single night!_'

Belle gives her an eye roll and a _yeah, yeah_, but she mercifully goes upstairs. Martina's not daft enough to think she's gone to even _pretend_ to do her schoolwork, but at least she's out the room. Martina needs space to breathe. She's got to go with Joey to bloody Adrian's tonight – she's got only a short time to pull herself together again, and just now, it doesn't feel like it'll be enough.

* * *

He's afraid to answer his phone when it rings, but mercifully, it's just his Mam.

'Oh, Joey – twelve weeks before Jack's back to normal!'

'Mam, it's gonna be fine, just take it easy,' he soothes. 'He's got a good prognosis, they said. Bit of recovery and he'll be good as new, and you're only over the road, and Leonora's gonna take care of 'im…'

'I'm not sure that…_posh hussy _is capable – '

'Leonora's all right, Mam, really!' Joey insists, a laugh in his voice. 'Look – if you wanna be there for 'im, we can all come round tomorrow, give 'im a good guard of honour when he comes home. How's that sound?'

If there's one thing bound to assuage his Mam, it's a promise of a family get-together. Her pitch slowly lowers, and by the time he rings off, she sounds more or less herself. Joey quickly seals his earlier promise, shoots a quick _Kelsall Street tomorrow, 1pm_ text to his siblings, as well as a firm _he'll be okay_ to Nellie (for someone her age, she's adapted to technology incredibly well. The same can't be said for Martina, who loathes modernity in all its forms).

He heaves a sigh of relief, glances over at his wife and daughter.

Belle's lounging around, listening to music (mercifully through headphones. Joey can't stand her rubbish; it's always some miserable sods with black bowl cuts whinging about life). Martina is doing what she often does; crocheting aimlessly. He's been married to her fifteen years and never worked out why she does it. She'll take it up at random, churn out square after square, and then abandon them as if they don't matter once they're completed, and Joey will find them turning up in the oddest places later – under her pillow, down the sides of the chairs, in kitchen cupboards, one stuffed in the bathroom vanity cupboard amongst the spare bog rolls, once. It's an odd habit, but one he's never really questioned, because he knows he's got enough eccentricities of his own, and Martina on the whole is quite sensible.

Joey sighs. It's been a harrowing night. Oscar's text has him in turmoil. It never just rains, it has to bloody pour. He'd be tempted just to order dinner in, sit with his arms around Martina and spend a few moments reflecting on everything, but unfortunately for him, it's Adrian's poetry night tonight.

Adrian's head has swollen to an enormous size now he's doing a degree. It means every other week he's inviting various family members round, reciting the works of whichever poet he's currently doing an essay on and subjecting them all to an analysis of every word, and reminding them, insufferably, that he is _a mature student_ now.

In spite of this, Joey attends every single one, just to lead by example, make a point that you support your family no matter what. And with everything that's happened recently with Jack, and what happened with Shifty when no-one was there for him, it's more important to him than ever that they stick together as a family.

He shakes his head, pulls on his leather jacket.

'You ready, sweetheart?'

Martina jumps.

'Oh. Yeah,' she mumbles absently. She stuffs another crochet square down the side of her chair, reaches for her handbag.

Joey frowns. 'You okay?'

Martina blinks again. It's as if she's on a two second delay. 'Yeah. Yeah, I'm…'

She trails off, and Joey frowns, but she's making her way over to the door as if everything is normal, and so he shakes his head.

'Enjoy yer night of boredom!' Belle calls from Joey's armchair.

'You stay out of trouble, okay?' Joey leans in to kiss Annabelle's forehead, flinching backwards when he gets too close and his ears are assaulted by the racket from her earphones. No wonder she's shouting; he can only imagine how painfully shrill the full force of it down her ear canals must be.

He reaches over and yanks them out her ears.

'Aw, ey, you'll make yourself deaf, listenin' at that volume.'

'Yeah, _yeah_,' Belle mutters.

Joey's eyes flick over to Martina, who's shaking her head. He sighs, smirks, and reaches for his car keys.

'Schoolwork!' Martina calls over her shoulder, a refrain as standard for her as _next!_ these days, and follows him out.

* * *

Joey had hoped Adrian's would be a quick, quiet affair this evening, but no such luck. Irenee has gone to Cardiff to visit customers and attend a couple of networking events, and Adrian's youngest two sons, Harris and Davey, have disappeared somewhere, but Jimmy has hung around for his father's performance, flamboyant as ever and wearing a stupid cravat Joey wants to rip off his neck, and Billy has turned up, undoubtedly for the free biscuits Adrian has laid out.

Adrian clears his throat ostentatiously, announces why he chose this particular poem, and what his essay thesis is (it's got something to do with _the apathy which pervades the world,_ whatever that's supposed to mean).

'Sounds dull,' says Billy, spraying biscuit crumbs over the carpet. Joey raises his eyebrows in warning, though he can't really blame his little brother. It does sound dull. Not only that, he doesn't understand what it means – nor, he suspects, does Adrian, really.

'_Here, where the world is quiet, here, where all trouble seems,'_ Adrian begins dramatically, '_dead winds, and spent waves' riot, in doubtful dreams of dreams…'_

Oh, God, this is shite, even by Adrian's standards. Joey reaches for a biscuit just to take his mind off what he's hearing, switches off.

Adrian gets through ten more dull, depressing verses, and Joey is barely listening (he doubts anybody is), but a couple of particularly morbid lines get his attention again.

'_That no life lives forever, that dead men rise up never,'_ Adrian recites, '_that even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.'_

'Adrian, that is _terrible,'_ Joey interrupts, because he has never heard anything so hopeless, so dreary, and he knows Adrian likes to find poets with dark, gloomy works to recite, but this is just _appalling_. 'What happened to hope? God? Heaven?'

'It's _nihilistic_,'Adrian says pompously, as if any of them know (or care) what that means.

'Does that have summat to do with the Nile?' Billy pipes up.

'Listen to 'im! I shudder to think that we share the same DNA!'

'Well, how do I know what all them fancy words mean?! I'm not a bachelor, am I? I've 'ad Julie!'

Billy's faux pas are usually unintentional, but they always rile Adrian up.

'For the last time, it's a _Bachelor's Degree_, it's not the same thing!'

'You're just as bad as Aveline, you are! _I'm a model, aren't I? I'm doin' a fancy degree, aren't I?_'

'Heaven forbid a man want to better himself.'

'I'm bettered!' Billy insists. 'I've got a sandwich shop _and_ me own staff, and I don't make everyone come round and try me new sandwiches, do I?!'

'Well, don't come round, if you don't want to! I don't know why you bother – all you ever do is stuff your gob with my biscuits anyway!'

'Okay, cool it!' Joey intervenes. He's had enough. Every single time, they all act up and get on Adrian's nerves, and he retaliates, and the evening drags out…hang on.

It's then he realises Martina is being very quiet.

Martina, who comes to Adrian's readings _just_ to heckle him, who loves to goad him with _tell me again, what use is this degree you're doing gonna be, if you can't make a living from it?, _who loves to remind him that for someone who's supposedly a poet himself, he spends an inordinate amount of time reading other people's poetry, and why is that, does he think?

He looks over at her. Her head is bowed, as if she's praying, her eyes lowered.

'Martina?' Joey asks. 'You still alive over there?'

'Sorry, I was just…listening to the poem.' Her voice is soft, faint. She raises her eyes to him slightly, and Joey sees a tear fall, then another, then more.

This is not normal. Martina rarely cries, and she's _certainly_ not moved to tears by Adrian's dramatic poetry recitals. It's so odd even Billy and Adrian stop shouting.

Adrian gazes at her, inspiration lighting up his eyes.

'Oh, God, I've made her cry! I've done it! I've actually found a poem that spoke to her!'

'_Adrian_,' Joey says as sternly as he can, 'that's _not a good thing!_ And I don't think it's the poem, son.'

'It _is_ the poem,' Martina insists, but Joey knows her stubborn ways too well. She's lying.

Adrian is looking at her in awe, Martina is looking at the floor, Jimmy is smirking, and Joey knows that he has to get her out of here.

'Prob'ly time we were gettin' back,' Joey says, reaching for his coat, trying to keep his voice casual, cheerful. 'Bit late, eh?'

'Eh – why –' Billy begins, but Joey doesn't let him get any further, shooting him the mother of all warning stares.

He claps Adrian on the shoulder in a farewell, ignoring the puzzled expression on his brother's face, doing a pathetic attempt at pretending that, if he acts like everything is fine, everyone else will believe it is.

The car trip home is silent, uncomfortable.

Joey steals a glance at Martina while he's sat at a traffic light. She's leaning against the passenger door, head resting on her fist, staring at nothing.

'Sweetheart,' Joey ventures, 'what's wrong?'

Martina doesn't answer him. She looks tired, frazzled, the rings under her eyes markedly darker than normal. Joey wants to reach for her, only at that moment the light goes green.

'I know it's not that stupid poem,' he tries anyway, clutch coasting so he can focus a bit more attention on her.

'It _was_ the poem. It was too much, that's all.'

Joey risks going off the road to turn and frown at her.

'Too much for what?'

She doesn't answer.

Joey's frown deepens. 'Because of Jack?'

Martina hesitates, and then sighs quietly. 'Yeah.'

A part of him could swear she's holding something back from him, but then again, Joey thinks, she might not be.

'He'll be okay, sweetheart,' Joey reaches over, rubs his hand up and down her arm. 'He's bein' let out tomorrow. It's all over.'

He pauses.

'But I do know how you feel. God, what a thing to happen, eh?'

'Yeah,' Martina says again.

They're quiet the rest of the way home.

* * *

She takes three paracetamol in an attempt to force herself into a drug-induced slumber, but to no avail. Her mind is on fire, everything inside it razing to ash, and then reviving and burning down again.

Joey's got one arm slung over her waist, pinning her to the mattress, and she can't decide whether she wants to shake him off, or curl closer and hope he'll hold her a bit more substantially. There was a time when she always used to find solace with Joey, even if they'd spent all day shouting at each other over something trivial. Ever since Oscar's reappearance, though, being too close to Joey can have a sickening effect on her, should her mood darken too much.

And it's pretty dark now, a great black crow perched over her bed. Adrian's poem was crap, and yet, hearing his voice, like the voice of doom, reciting verses about the bleak hopelessness of life, just seems to have added fuel to the fire. _No life lives forever, _reminding her of what she's lost, of what she might lose yet. Joey seems fine now, more or less, and she doesn't understand how he can recover so quickly.

Shifty's gone. Grandad's gone. Her Dad's gone, and she never made it up with him, said a dutiful goodbye but could have done more, resents him even now for leaving her Mam with his gambling debts. Jack was nearly gone. They're dropping like flies around her, people she cares about. And Martina can't help thinking, wondering, if it might be time to find someone else, before he too is _gone_. If he isn't already.

When she and Joey got together, they'd both had open wounds, had crawled into each other's arms in need of healing. Joey has closure about Oscar now, even if he brought hell down on their household to get it. Martina wants closure too.

Jack's near-miss has left her feeling bloody horrible, everything she tries to push down sneaking back up the surface in a more out-of-control way than normal, and she needs to know – if she had that closure, finally, after all these years, would those horrific thoughts go away? Would she be able to cope with things one at a time, normally, the way everyone around her does?

She would have to, surely. She's insisted it to herself all these years. That if things had been different on that front, she would have been happier. A small voice tells her that's not the answer, and she pushes it away. She doesn't want to accept the alternative. It frightens her.

It frightens her half to death.

* * *

'I'm fine,' Martina insists the next morning when Joey checks in on her.

And to her credit, she does _seem_ fine. She makes breakfast for them, kisses Joey goodbye and walks Annabelle to school, disappears off to work after that, as she always does. Joey frowns, ponders, thinks once again how impressive it is that she can pull herself together like that, and lets it go. Perhaps it was just that bloody poem after all. They've all been on edge of late.

He cruises on down to Kelsall Street, the concern reduced to a mild itch, which he can keep his mind off for the time being, and he greets his Mam and his siblings, tosses a tenner into his Mam's pot (he's kept the tradition in his own home as well, and Belle loves it), and sits down to lunch with his family, bowing his head in time for his Mam's prayer.

'We thank Thee, O Father, for Jack's health, and our lives, and we ask Thee, Father, to keep us safe and well.'

It's one of the shortest prayers Nellie has uttered in a long time.

'Oh, I do hope,' she says, not even noticing as Billy starts transferring food right from the serving dishes to his gob, 'he's not in too much _pain._'

'I think he gets medication, Mam,' Joey says gently.

'Like that morphine stuff?' Bloody hell, a forty-year-old should have more common sense than this, surely. Joey should have given up wondering when Billy will grow up by now, but a stubborn part of him hopes it'll happen _some day_. 'People get addicted to that.'

'That's not gonna happen, son,' Joey insists, because Nellie's ears are pricking up.

'I read online about how they do bypass surgeries,' Billy says. 'First they cut – '

'Oh, God, first he single-handedly drags my achievements through the muck, then he splatters the gore of open heart surgery all over this table!' Adrian looks pale underneath his angry expression. 'If there wasn't enough _suffering_ in the world, it all has to be broadcast through his gob!'

'Hey! Hey! All this talk about suffering!' Joey throws up his hands. 'Why don't we think about the joys in life, eh? Why don't we have some nice dreams, instead of focussin' on the nightmares? Now, what's everyone up to?'

'I've got a new frock for Oswald's Easter service,' Aveline pipes up.

'It's ages til Easter– ' Billy begins, and Joey stomps his foot under the table.

'Not your turn.'

'And I'm gonna serve tea and cakes to the parishioners afterwards,' Aveline goes on, and the others suppress shudders. Aveline's attempts to cook and bake are to be commended. The results, however, are horrific.

'Well I'm doing an extra poetry night this week, if anyone's interested,' Adrian says, and a collective groan rings out across the table.

'Someone needs to stop 'im!' Billy's gob is at the ready. 'He's got a bloody big nose these days!'

'Big _head_, Bill,' Joey mutters under his breath. He shouldn't be letting Billy get away with putting Adrian down like this, but after last night, he can't begrudge his youngest brother.

'You should've seen it,' Billy announces to nobody in particular, ' 'e bored Martina literally to tears!'

'She was _very moved!'_ Adrian insists.

'Leave off, son,' Joey says quietly.

'She wasn't, _was she_, Joey!' Billy won't take no for an answer. 'She was cryin' from boredom – they 'ad to leave early!'

Adrian is on the verge of exploding with rage. He and Billy are more alike than Adrian cares to admit – _both_ of them resorting to tantrums at a moment's provocation; Adrian just prefers to call it _artistic temperament. _ And Joey doesn't want this conversation to go on, or it might pique the others' curiosity about Martina, and he can't explain that himself. He hastens to change the subject.

'Why don't we go over the road and see how Jack's farin'? Eh? Mam?'

Nellie is only too eager, and that thankfully puts an end to their conversation. They troop over the road, little mafia that they are, brave Leonora's feigned smile and gritted teeth that they have all turned up at once when he's supposed to be resting, and Joey focusses his efforts on a significantly more cheery Jack, and pushes everything else to the back of his brain.

* * *

'You wanna watch it, little sweetheart, or you're dead, you hear?'

_Oh, God. If only_.

Martina starts at how casually that thought popped into her head, jumping slightly, which, of course, provokes her claimant further. The threa doesn't scare her, but he assumes it has, and doubles down.

'Sittin' there raining down judgement on me for tryin' to do an honest day's work…'

'Which you didn't declare.'

'YOU WATCH IT! You've no idea what it's like strugglin' to survive – _suffering_ day by day…'

_Suffering_ seems to be everyone's watch word this week. Martina shuts her eyes, tries to let it wash over her and away as quickly as possible.

'DON'T YOU ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME!'

He's leaning in so close now she's getting spittle on her face.

'God knows 'ow many people 'ave died sufferin' at the hands of the likes of you! Starvin' in the gutter somewhere!'

She flinches, but this time it _is_ from his words.

There are days when she can brush comments off without a second thought. When she knows people are stressed, frustrated, or trying to cover up wrongdoing, and she's just their punching bag.

And there are days like today, when she wonders.

When she wonders if they're right.

* * *

She finishes work at three today, but she won't have a chance to recover from it. Today's only going to get worse, because there's something she needs to do.

Last night, while lying awake, she made up her mind about something. Joey nearly losing his brother, both of them losing Shifty, has made her realise – if she doesn't find her brother soon, she likely won't get a chance to see him alive again.

But to find him, she has to visit someone else first, who she's aware she's abandoned. It's time she did something about that. Kill two birds with one stone and all that.

Martina doesn't really think she has the strength. It's asking for trouble, and she's already in trouble, and doesn't really understand why, and this could make things a lot worse.

She does it anyway.

'Lady Muck deigning to pay me a visit,' her Mam says when she opens the door to her. 'This is a red-letter day, isn't it?'

'Don't _start_,' Martina mutters. She sits down awkwardly on her mother's sofa, stirs sugar into the tea she's offered, unsure what to say after all this time. Unsure if perhaps this visit is too little, too late.

Her Mam's face has hardened. Her eyes – the same eyes copied into Martina's face, and Annabelle's as well – dulled, practically lifeless. No twinkle, no hope.

_God, it's like looking at meself thirty years down the track. That's where I'm headed. _

Logically, it's not true. She's got Joey, has managed to hold onto him for nearly fifteen years. She's got Annabelle. She's solvent; they're paying their mortgage off at a good rate; she shouldn't have much to worry about as life goes on (save Joey being arrested for petty crime, but she knows he's got a few safeguards in place for that, has helped him set them up). _It still could happen, though._

'Well, I'd have reason to, wouldn't I? Two phone calls from you in the last decade, a child I've never even seen…'

Martina bristles. 'I invited you to the Christening.'

She hadn't bothered to turn up, what was more. Martina has never stopped taking this as a personal affront, has used it as the basis for a number of_ I told you so_-s directed at Joey over the years, when he's asked if she wants to invite her to things, or played the _you don't do that to family_ card.

'Out of what? Duty? How was I supposed to go, anyway, _sweetheart_, behind your Dad's back? Anyway, I don't hold with all that.'

'You do,' Martina insists. 'You're C of E. Unless something has changed in the last…'

'Thirteen years?' her Mam says venomously. Martina flinches, but she supposes she deserves that.

'Has it?'

'No. But I don't hold with infant baptism.'

That's something she's never heard before. Something she knows Proddies don't follow, because Oswald does baptisms (Aveline loves to go, regardless of whether she knows the kid, to coo at the babies), because Nellie has never recovered from the betrayal of Francesca's Christening. It's personal, Martina realises from the resentment in her Mam's voice, though she doesn't understand it.

'Why?'

'They didn't make up their own mind, did they? So why bother?'

'Because it's _nice,'_ Martina says through gritted teeth. 'It's _normal.'_

'Well, you weren't baptised,' she shrugs.

Martina's spoon falls to the table. '_What?_ Why not?!'

'No hope for you, even baptism couldn't make _you_ fit for St Peter's book. '

Martina bristles. '_Hilarious_.'

Her Mam shrugs. 'Look, I didn't want you tied to one or the other and suffering for it. When I met yer Dad, the _fuss_ people put up you wouldn't believe, him bein' one and me being the other. I didn't want you being raised into the feuds, when it's all the same God anyway. It's just not…necessary. Thought you might as well make your own decision when you were older.'

'And do you know what that did to me?' Martina says crossly, even though a part of her feels guilty, because it never occurred to her there were good intentions behind anything her family ever did. 'It meant I had nothing to belong to. I just sat there while everyone else took sides and I was left out of _both_.'

'You could have chosen your own side at any point, Martina! Or better yet, I hoped you'd be happy accepting both of them as truth. You believe – you know – what's right…isn't that enough?'

'Not in a city where _everyone_ has a clique.' Martina sighs. She didn't even realise she was angry about this til now, has always touted her _both and neither_ position with some degree of pride, makes scoffing noises when the two factions in this city start having a go at one another. It's only now she realises that pride was compensation. She wants to _be_ something. The fact that she was never baptised makes it worse; she'd always _assumed_ that somewhere down the line holy water had touched her infant head, that deep down, she _was_ something.

'That's…' she decides to cut off this thread, because it's not getting her anywhere. 'That's not why I came here anyway.'

'Why did you come?'

'Because…' Martina struggles to get the words out. 'I need to know….have you…' It's still too hard. Thankfully, even after all this time, her Mam knows her well enough to work it out.

'I know where Roger is, yes.'

And Martina's heart starts to pound.

'How…'

'I'm honestly surprised you didn't ask sooner. Or at least didn't work it out. Martina…do you _really think_ someone can hide from the police their entire life?'

'Ah.' That answers that question. 'Prison.'

'He was. For a while.'

'How long?'

'They caught him about a week after everything.'

That's not what she meant, but it startles her all the same.

'A _week_?!' Some daft part of Martina had assumed he'd lain low for a long time – well, forever. That that was the reason he stayed away. It had to be. If he'd done his time and got out, why didn't he seek her out? A stab of pain hits her. She's going to cry, she realises. Not right now, but at some point.

'And how long…how long was he in for?'

'Fifteen years.'

'_What?!_' He borrowed some money and didn't pay it back. He was part of a burglary. That doesn't add up to fifteen years, it makes no sense…

'Martina. You really didn't read _anything_ about him over all these years?'

Martina is ashamed to look her mother in the eye. 'No.' She doesn't read much news about anything.

'Doesn't surprise me. You're wilfully blind where your brother is concerned. I'm not going to go into that. You don't know what it does to a mother to hear that…but it was more –significantly more– there was something else he did while all that was goin' on. Something he didn't think anyone could forgive him for.'

'He didn't kill anyone, did he?'

'No.' The no is worse, because there's a short list of options, and it's narrowing.

'I don't believe this. I don't believe any of it.'

'You don't know what people will do, sweetheart, when they're addicted and get desperate. When he got out, Martina…he couldn't come to terms with it. Moved around from place to place, got back on the bottle…we tried to help him best we could, when he asked, but there's only so much anyone can do.'

She should be dwelling on some of the far worse shocks her Mam's just dished out, but she can only focus on one thing. When her Mam was 'paying her brother's whiskey bills,' which Martina had taken to mean she was actually paying her dad's gambling debts off, because her brother was gone, maybe she _actually had been…_

He's been around all this time.

_Fifteen years he's been a free man and he never thought to find me…_Martina tenses in anger. _Fifteen years he's been in contact with you and you never thought to tell me where he was_…

She doesn't realise she's said all this out loud until she sees her Mam's raised eyebrow.

'Don't you blame me, _sweetheart_. It's not my place to go spillin' out his business. That's for him to decide – and he asked me specifically not to mention where he was to you.'

Martina feels herself twitch.

'But you knew what it did to me.'

'I knew what hangin' around him did to you, Martina. You always looked the other way where Roger was concerned. He brought out the worst in you, and you defended him even as he was doin' it. You rolled over and let 'im take your income, you picked up after him, he was keepin' you from getting anywhere in life, because you were staying down at his level to keep an eye on him. And you were doing well for yourself after he went… good job, respectable life, your own flat…I didn't want to spoil that for you by giving you the chance to throw all that away. And neither did he, for that matter.'

'And don't you think,' Martina says, livid now, 'that that should have been _my_ decision?! I know what I can handle, and I could've helped, I…'

'You _never_ helped, Martina – you enabled him. You were just as bad for him as he was for you. Neither of you were going to make yourselves better if you kept on like that, you looking the other way every time he did something wrong, paying for his mistakes so he never 'ad to learn from them…Roger recognised it. And it nearly killed him, keeping himself away from you, and it nearly killed me and yer dad, keepin' it from you even if it meant you decided to cut us from your life…but it was what was best for you, _and_ for him, keepin' the two of you away from each other.'

'And what about when I was thirteen and needed him – and Dad threw him out on the street– '

'Yer dad threw him out because he wanted you to grow up normal – he was aware of what his gambling did to me, and to you and Rog, and he was aware your brother was heading the same way with drink. And it was for Roger's sake as well – he wanted him to stand on 'is own two feet and look after himself, even if that meant forcin' him to.'

She ignores this.

'How can you just make decisions like that on my behalf when –'

'What if you saw_ your_ daughter in that situation?'

'I – ' she falters.

As much as she's loath to admit it, Martina knows she's right. Because of Roger she's had, for far too long in her life, a soft spot for people who do her wrong. Even now, a small part of her misses Shifty, even though a life with him nearly ended hers. The lovers before him were similar. And she loved them because they reminded her of the first person she loved who did her wrong. Joey's the only one who doesn't fit the pattern, and she thinks it was sheer dumb luck that he's a stubborn obnoxious bastard who pursued her relentlessly, because if it hadn't been for him, she'd be alone or with another Roger clone, causing her one hurt after another. If Roger had been around, it could have been worse again still.

She would never wish a life like that on Annabelle.

Martina doesn't know, necessarily, that she'd lie to Belle, but doing whatever she could to protect her…that she understands. She just doesn't understand how anyone could try to do the right thing and still cause so much hurt.

'Where is he?' she insists. 'Is he still alive?'

'Just.'

'What d'you _mean_, just?!'

'I spoke to him on the phone last night and…he didn't have long, love.'

Something explodes in front of Martina's eyes.

'Did it ever occur to yer to _mention_ he was dying?! Or was I just gonna readit in an obituary one day?!'

'He _asked me not to_ – '

'Oh, don't give me that.'

The Boswells tell each other _everything_. It would never occur to Nellie Boswell to keep something so important from one of her children. It would never occur to Joey to _ask_ her to. They're constantly in each other's business, and it had irked her when she'd married into them, but she's used to it now. To be thrown back into how separate, how secretive her own family are is a painful shock, an ice bath.

'How was I supposed to tell you anything, _sweetheart, _when you only speak to me on your terms? Perhaps if you'd contacted me more than twice in the last thirteen years, if I'd 'ad some way of _reaching yer_…'

She can't really rebut this one. She lowers her eyes, ashamed in spite of her resolution to remain angry.

'I don't 'ave the strength yer dad did. Go and see him if you want. Don't say I didn't warn you,' her Mam scribbles down some details, almost viciously. 'I don't know what Roger'll think now I've betrayed his trust and all.'

'_Betrayed his trust?!'_ the words are bile in Martina's mouth. 'And what about mine?'

'I never had yours to begin with, did I?'

She supposes she can't argue with that. It occurs to her that a lot of the relationship issues she has with her family stem from her own refusal to trust them.

No, they're not. She forces that thought away. They're because of Roger. Because her parents threw him out when she was young. Because she needed him, when they didn't want her around. Because he disappeared after wreaking havoc in her life. Because even now, her Mam knew where he was and didn't tell her. Would have let him die and not tell her, out of some misguided attempt to keep her 'safe.'

It has to be. It's not her. It isn't.

Is it?

She snatches up the paper her Mam shoves at her, hands shaking, and makes for the door with as much haste as she can manage.

'Will I see you again, or is this it now before I die?'

Martina hesitates, looks back at her.

'No, you will.' Her tongue moves awkwardly in her mouth, as though numb. 'I'll…I'll bring Annabelle, next time.'

'I'll believe that when I see it.'

'Why…' she shouldn't, but it falls from her lips anyway. 'Why didn't you _care_ what it did to me?'

'Martina,' her Mam's voice is hard. 'You only see what you want to see. You were _determined_ that nobody cared about you except Roger, so you made it true in your mind. It didn't matter what anyone said or did. You ignore anything that doesn't fit with your black and white view of what people are. I saw you overlook things Roger did – _to you – _because he could do no wrong in your eyes. And you ignored anything yer dad and I did to show you we cared – because you decided for some reason that all we ever did was try and get at yer. And as for _what it did to you_, you never stopped to consider what you did to any of us. I suppose that doesn't fit with your idea that the world revolves around you and your perpetual misery.'

Martina's mouth purses, but she can't say anything in her own defence. Because it's bloody true, and she's been in the wrong longer than she wants to acknowledge, but if she admits that out loud, her self-loathing would overpower her.

'I see,' she says, nearly choking on her own dry throat. Her eyes prick. 'I – er – '

'I just hope, Martina, that you don't treat your husband and daughter the way you did us.'

She tenses.

'I don't.'

Her Mam delivers the killer blow as she's walking out the door.

'How do you know you don't?'

* * *

Joey's done well this afternoon.

A few false supplier invoices to companies he hates (he gets a kick out of getting his own back on the meat industry, companies ripping off the young, poor and gullible, and jewellers specialising in white gold), couple of bandwidth attacks, watching sites crash and burn, sending coded texts to the blokes who paid him to do it and watching the balance in his alias's account go up – easy money. It doesn't give him the satisfaction in-person jobs do, gives him a bit more guilt, but his working day has given something he desperately wants– flexibility.

Working from home has enabled him to keep his mobile by his side, in case Jack and Leonora need anything, and he's taken eight calls from his Mam on the house phone, reassuring her all is well, ducked out at three to collect Belle from school.

Martina's out somewhere, which had surprised Joey– Martina _never_ goes out under her own steam – but it's meant he hasn't had to hide what he's doing, so in a way, he's thankful.

He's starting on his next assignment when his mobile explodes into life, a tune Joey doesn't recognise. Belle's probably changed it again. She has a habit of expecting her parents to understand pop culture references neither of them care about.

Joey checks the number.

Oscar.

God, it's Roxy all over again. The calls to ask for a favour, or to remind him how much he'd let her down, always asking too much, taking too much, never satisfied after snatching from him more than he could give.

It breaks Joey's heart Oscar has turned out the same way, and even though he hasn't seen or spoken to Roxy in over fourteen years, he still feels a white hot rush of rage at her. Oscar was a lovely lad, once. Roxy destroyed him.

This is all he needs, when Jack's still recovering, when Martina's in one of her down periods.

He answers anyway.

'Hello, yes?' Joey is aware he sounds brusque. He's wary, and rightly so.

'Joey?'

'Oscar,' he keeps his voice pared back, which is a difficult feat.

'Joey,' Oscar is exultant, breathless, which doesn't help Joey's case. It makes him feel that treacherous surge of love for the young man that is – was – _is_ his son, the type that makes him make a fool of himself. 'I haven't heard from you in ages!'

'Funny, that. Seein' as how I only hear from _you_ when it's me wallet you're after.'

'Oh, don't be like that, Joey.' He's got a male voice, a London accent, but if Joey didn't know better, he could swear Roxy was talking. 'I thought you understood.'

'Understood what, Oscar? The fact that someone I love like me own son sees me as a cash-point? That you weren't satisfied with what I gave yer and tricked me into sendin' more? That you pretended to my daughter you were interested in gettin' to know her as a sister and it was all a front to get at me?'

That one had stung Joey worse than any of Roxy's attacks, had blasted a hole in his heart. Martina had blown a fuse. It's a good thing Oscar hasn't set foot in their house for four years – she'd likely kill him if he showed up again. It had been a pretty heavy blow to their relationship, and Joey's not sure Martina isn't still harbouring a grudge over it. He doesn't blame her, though. He can't think about it himself without gritting his teeth.

'Oh, that's it, blame me. I'm not the one who left, got himself a new family and forgot the people he left behind…'

Joey sees red. Typical Roxy tactic – guilt trip if ever he saw one, hitting where it hurts, a sadistic twist of the truth.

'Oscar – you _know_ that's not true. If I hadn't cared, I wouldn't have kept trying – and I've got eleven years' worth of solicitors' letters as a testament to how much I tried. And as for _me_ leavin' _Roxy_, I…' he stops short. No matter what he thinks of her now, Joey tries not to slag off Roxy in front of Oscar. It would be stooping to Roxy's level.

'I had to.'

'Oh, yeah, you _had to_.'

'Look, what do you want?' Joey is impatient. 'Cause I'm tellin' you now, son, if it's money you're after…'

'I thought you would understand – evidently, you don't. Forget it, Joey.'

Oscar hangs up. Joey stares at his blank phone screen for a moment, shaking with frustration. He hurt the family he came from for Roxy's sake; seems history is trying to repeat himself, her son trying to push him to hurt the family he built for himself. And yet that guilt is still throbbing, much as he _knows _Oscar was trying to manipulate him.

He longs to sit with Martina and pick it all over with her, as he used to do when Roxy, in the early days, reared her head when she wanted something from him. Martina had been so calm and composed, had been the comfort and reassurance he'd needed while he tried to handle it. She'd helped him fend Roxy off, delivering a few harsh warnings to his ex-wife – but surprisingly enough, Martina had never been concerned about infidelity where Roxy was concerned.

Oscar, however, is another matter. Martina had been terrified to have children, lest they become a replacement for Oscar, had insisted they stop at one, Joey suspects, because they had a girl. She's insisted on knowing every time Joey tried to make contact, had lost the plot when Oscar reappeared on the scene and almost immediately took advantage of them.

And Joey knows that's in part a protective streak towards Annabelle, but a part of it, he suspects, is that Martina has been always pretty vocal about feeling unwanted as a child. (Joey's not sure Martina's perception isn't skewed there, but Martina's always been determined not to let that happen to Belle, and he respects that).

He decides he might try anyway. Martina being strong for him, helping him sort out his problems, sometimes helps sharpen her focus, helps her back out of her own head and into the here and now.

It's a bit of a selfish justification, really, but he's not sure what to do.

* * *

Martina comes home deflated, even though she's been given life-changing information. It's as if knowing, as if hearing yet _another_ thing in her life could have been better, but wasn't, has pulled a shutter down over her brain again.

She lies in bed that evening, all but paralysed by it, her chest being slowly crushed, feeling the weight not just of this, but of everything.

Joey is changing in front of the full-length mirror in their room, studying his physique and grumbling while talking to himself, or perhaps her – she isn't sure. He doesn't care sometimes, as long as his gob is engaged. It's something about bloody Oscar, from the sounds of it.

'Joey,' she says softly.

He blithers on as though he hasn't heard.

'I should have listened. I was always good at that. I always listened to me family back in the day; it was built into me; have I lost it? Am I…'

Joey doesn't notice the irony, Martina thinks bitterly. She needs him to listen _now_, and he's talking over the top of her.

'Joey, I need to talk to yer.'

'Am I just missing something important, Martina?'

'Joey, I don't…you and Annabelle….you're everything to me. Even if I don't…show it.'

He's still not paying attention.

'Joey, my brother might be dying.'

No response even at that. Roxy's bloody son is probably asking him for money again, for him to be this distracted. She feels that wall come up between them again.

He won't help her. Martina feels her eyes prick. She could have done with some of Joey's inane Boswell wisdom right now. She could have done with Joey, full stop. Not a half-hearted non-attempt at listening.

Joey's looking at her now, but it's too late. She's not going to bother repeating herself.

'Sorry, sweetheart – what were you sayin'? I didn't hear.'

'Of course not,' Martina says, turning away from him, shutting her eyes. 'Of course not.'

God, she hasn't felt this way in a long time. Utterly hopeless. Suffocated by the grey blanket over her face. She'd thought all that was over, that finally, she'd found some happiness. Now that seems to be evaporating, and she's falling back into that dark place that had seen her standing in front of a window in the flat she had shared with Shifty, wondering how far down it would be if she'd opened it and gently slid out. Only she hadn't. She'd forced herself to come back to the light, to start anew. She doesn't have the strength for that now. She's fought too many battles, been let down too many times, and the diminishing of something good is more painful a sting than any that have come before it. Why have joy, only for it to eventually be tainted. It's sapping her energy.

She just can't do it anymore.

She has to go and find Roger. With her last ounces of emotional strength, she _has to find out_. Either the hole in her heart was caused by him, or it wasn't. If the former, she has hope, that this can all go away. That she might re-find that happiness again, in time. If the latter…she doesn't want to think about what she would do then.

It doesn't bear thinking about.

* * *

Joey wakes a few times during the night, agitated. Jack's fine, and yet there's a lingering worry born of seeing Shifty dead, that compels him still to be concerned. Oscar's clearly manipulating him, and yet he can't shake the guilt at not rolling over. Martina had been distant when he tried to talk to her, and yet he can't trace the cause of this particular dip in her mood.

'I don't,' Martina suddenly mutters in her sleep, cutting into his thoughts.

Joey turns to look at her. She has nightmares often – they both do – but she hasn't said anything in her sleep for a long time.

'I don't,' she whimpers again.

'Shhhh,' Joey whispers gently, pulls her against him. Martina's arm immediately snakes up around his neck.

She hasn't done that in a long time, either. She's unsettled – profoundly so.

'I don't, Joey,' Martina presses closer into him, her grip tightening.

'I know you don't,' Joey murmurs, even though he has no idea what she's dreaming of. 'I know.'

She's quiet after that, settles on his chest and dreams silently, twitching occasionally.

Joey rubs her back absently and thinks. Was he in the wrong, hanging up on his son? Oscar isn't really his son, but Joey can't help the piece of him that still holds the little git close to his heart.

Was he too harsh in his refusal, stressed out by everything that's happened with Jack, too concerned with Martina's latest downturn at Adrian's that he was blind to something? Or was he completely in the right? Has he just got too much to worry about that he's overthinking everything?

He doesn't know, and he's still pondering it when he eventually falls asleep, fretting over a distant problem, unaware that the one closer to home is about to blow up in his face.

* * *

**Not a lot happened yet, but it will, and quite rapidly, and we'll reach the point Joey was at in the prologue next chapter, which hopefully I'll have finished the edit on soon. I'm aiming on splitting this into four parts, and then I've got a new fic planned which is a bit of a fix-it for the final episode, although that may start coming sooner if I need more time on this one. **

**Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Easter. **


	3. Crochet Squares

**So...contrary to what I said last chapter, this will not be just four parts. It's far too long, and I'd rather break it into digestible chapters than bombard you with too much at once. **

**As usual, I don't own Bread, and this is not meant to give any particular message about mental health or how to handle any situations, it's just exploring what happened to Martina and Joey in this universe. Personal experience basis supplemented with further research, not meant to reflect everyone's experience, everyone is different, I am not a doctor, and so on. This is just a story.**

* * *

**II**

**Crochet squares**

**2010**

It isn't until Martina refuses to get out of bed that Joey truly twigs. She's been a bit off, yes, and it isn't as if Joey doesn't _know_ she sometimes has a hard time of it—no-one knows that better than him after all they've been through together—but still, the sight of his formidable wife, always determined to face whatever life throws at her, burrowed deep into the cave of the blankets and not moving shocks him. It's worse this time. Far worse. And that scares him.

'Martina?' he walks over to the blanket, tentatively shakes her shoulder. 'Sweetheart, it's eight o'clock. You're gonna be late for work.'

He knows she's awake but it's as if nothing he says registers. She continues to lie there, sheets pulled around her neck, gazing in the direction of the window. He's never seen her eyes so vacant.

'You not feelin' well…sweetheart? Mart?'

The abbreviation of her name is a pathetic attempt on Joey's part to drag some sort of reaction out of her—she's always been staunchly defensive of the use of her full name; not Tina, that's what Roger used to call her, not Mart, it makes her sound like a home-brand aspirin, _there's nothing wrong with me name the way it is_— but it does nothing to help his cause. Not even a flinch, a shudder, an eyeroll. And though Joey often finds Martina's condescending facial expressions a little annoying, a little unwarranted at times, right now one of those would be the most beautiful sight in the world.

'C'mon, sweetheart,' he hears the heavy dose of _pathetic_ enter his voice, 'at least tell me what's wrong.'

Martina blinks very slowly, very deliberately, and moves her shoulder out from under his hand.

'I'm not goin' to work today.'

She sounds as if somebody's let out all her air, drained all her battery. Flat. Robotic.

'Okay,' Joey says, sitting down beside her. 'Do you mind if I ask why?'

He feels her shrug. 'No point.'

The answer is a needle prick to his chest. Martina goes on and on about _pointless_, _pathetic_, _a useless existence_, and he's always come to accept it's wired into her, so to speak, connected with her absolute hatred of her job. But it's _how_ she's saying it this time that's different. It's as if…it's as if she's giving up.

Martina has never given up. She's come close sometimes, she's been through some very dark points, points where she's mechanically gone through the motions shrouded by feelings of resentment, but she's always still _done it_. She's always still got herself through the necessaries, kept on going. Even when Shifty died, when she'd gone further into the dark places in her head than ever before, she'd got out of bed every morning, delivered Annabelle to school, kept Joey afloat, done what she needed to keep on surviving.

But she's not fighting and that worries Joey.

'Are you sure you're not ill—'

'—I want to be left alone.' Martina is frightening in her abruptness, her coldness.

Joey recoils. 'Oh…okay, er…' he backs down, unsure exactly how to battle this…whatever it is, 'do you want me to ring up the DWP and call in sick for you?'

There had been days when they'd first been married, wonderful, _glorious_ days, when Martina had allowed herself to indulge in just a smidgeon of naughty behaviour, and had, citing Joey's bad influence over her as the reason for it, chucked the odd sickie in order to spend the day with him. Only a couple of times, mind, over a decade ago now, but Joey still looks back on them fondly; lovely, long, lazy mornings where they'd stayed in bed until midday, sometimes shagging but sometimes just chatting, only half-awake, and then they'd got up and gone outside, sat together in comfortable silence and enjoyed each other's company, wasting the entire day and not even bothering to get dressed but feeling fulfilled nonetheless. Martina not going to work had always been a Godsend, a rare treat he'd lapped up enthusiastically. But this… this feels so wrong. This isn't like her, this reluctance to even go on with her life makes Joey want to grab her, jostle her, demand what she's done with the real Martina.

'You can,' pod-person Martina says dully. 'If you want.'

Oh, it's bad all right, if she doesn't even care about that. Martina, who has always been fastidious about responsibility, who always ensures forms are up-to-date, that Belle always has her sick notes, her permission notes, her homework completed (even if it means keeping her up all night and standing over her while she does it) not caring about the consequences of missing a day of work. Not right.

And, Joey decides, not happening.

'Look, what is goin' on with you?' he snaps, his hands finding his hips. 'You're not yourself at all! Now if there's somethin' keepin' you from goin' to work, there's no shame in tellin' me. It might at least clear some of this up. Because, Martina, somethin' is _clearly _ wrong here, and unless you _tell me_…'

'I don't 'ave to tell you anything,' Martina's voice never deviates from that same flat, even track. It pushes Joey headfirst into his anger.

'No, Heaven forbid, I'm only your husband after all!'

'You won't listen anyway.'

'Eh! I—' Joey falters, his argument dying on his tongue. He wants to rebut her, insist that he has always listened, and he always will, but over the past few weeks, he can't dredge up one incident where he's sat and had a good talk with Martina. Not one which didn't involve his own problems anyway. And he knows – bloody hell, he _knows_ that what happened with Jack has triggered some sort of depressive episode. He was just being bloody blind, trying to hope she'd get through it as she normally does. But for some reason this one's worse.

Martina finally moves, turning and raising her head, staring at him with those glassy eyes.

'Go on, tell me how you listened to me recently.' Joey is still reeling from the sting she's just delivered when she throws in one more blow. 'What was I tellin' you last night?'

And Joey just wants to fall through the floor.

Because he doesn't remember a word of it. He'd been so preoccupied, thinking about Jack and Oscar's latest ploy for money, that everything she'd said had gone in one ear and out the other. He's got nothing. And right at this moment, Joey feels like the biggest failure of a husband that ever existed.

'I didn't think so,' Martina mutters, turning back onto her side. 'Go away now. I want to be alone.'

'Martina, please—'

'I want to be alone.'

Joey fumbles desperately in his brain for something that might rouse her.

'Er… Belle's gotta go to school.'

'Take her, then.'

'Don't you want to see her before she goes?'

'I'll see 'er when she gets back.'

'Martina, I…' Joey chokes, 'I'm sorry.'

'Go away now, Joey.'

He can think of nothing else to say.

He goes.

* * *

'_GrrrrEEEtings!_' Belle trills in a cheeky imitation of him when he comes into a kitchen in a daze, staring at nothing. 'What you doin' just standin' there, Dad?'

'Oh,' Joey hastily pulls himself together, forces out a chuckle. 'Just…daydreamin'. You know.'

'Common symptom of getting old.'

'Watch it!' Joey warns. He may be on average ten years older than most of the parents of Annabelle's form, but that fact does not extend an invitation for her to start making comments about his age. Besides, he still looks fantastically young. Well, sort of young. Well, he _dresses_ young. And almost gets away with it.

Belle smirks, shrugs, returns to her breakfast. 'Okay, then. Watchin' it get older and older and…'

'Annabelle! Cut it!'

She hastily turns a snicker into a cough.

'Where's Mam, then? I've got to be at school in wha'…' she checks her non-existent watch, 'ten minutes?'

Joey feels the vampire bats inside him banging against his stomach walls.

'Er… I don't think she's feelin' too well, Princess.'

'Aw, 'ey… can I 'ave the day off?'

In spite of the whole daft situation Joey can't help but be amused.

'Can't you even pretend to be sympathetic?'

'Oh. Yeah.' Belle's attempt at a sad face lasts about half a second. 'So can I 'ave the day off?'

'No.'

Belle slumps back in her chair muttering under her breath.

'I'm takin' yer.'

That perks her up again.

'In a Jag?' Annabelle hasn't been allowed in any of Joey's Jags since she tried to sell the figurehead off his MKII to one of her mates. As far as Joey can recall, that was the only time he'd ever really gone off at her.

'Yeah, don't think I won't be keepin' an eye on you, sunshine. If anythin' goes missin' from my car…'

'Your cars are _old_ and _sad_…'

'My cars are _classic_, which as _you well know_ makes them more valuable. In the right market, you could've got double what you wanted for me Leaper.'

Belle's eyes light up. 'Ooh.'

'Not gonna happen.' Joey grabs her arm, pulling her up from her chair. 'Come along now, we don't want you to be late!'

'I could always 'ave the day off…'

Joey just shakes his head as he leads her toward the now always-kept-locked garage, steers her towards the X-Type; his everyday car at the moment. It's bluish grey, sophisticated enough for taking his daughter to school and running a few errands, but not menacing enough for some of his more devious jobs. The black S-type is typically what he uses for his more gangster-esque escapades and night time jobs, his second-favourite steed, replacement for the beloved MKII that sadly no longer runs, but which he keeps anyway just because he loves it, and because he's heard there's a market for collecting them.

'Right, okay, in the car… no touchin'…' he warns as Belle makes a beeline for the bonnet of the MKII and leans over the Leaper, examining it.

'Twice as much…' she mutters, her eyes alight.

'Eh! What did I just say?' Joey grabs her arm, yanking her away and propelling her towards the passenger door. 'Now get in and behave yourself.'

'Yeah, _yeah_.'

Annabelle climbs into the passenger seat, and Joey gets a flash of more than he would have liked to see as she adjusts herself.

'Would your mother approve of you wearin' your school skirt that short?'

'No,' Belle says blithely.

Joey sighs. 'Should you be doin' it, then?'

'Yes.'

'The answer is no, sweetheart.'

'Don't look up me skirt, Dad. Not appropriate.' And she's floored him with her daft teenage logic. She knows just how to embarrass him to get out of doing something she's been told. It never works on Martina. But far too often it works on him.

Joey shakes his head, turns his key in the ignition, stomping for the clutch. He never has got the hang of the fact that the X-type is automatic; he's not sure where the idiot who sold it to him got it from, but it out of all the models he'd looked at when he was buying, this one was in the best condition.

_It does that for you_, he can imagine Martina sing-songing at him when he reaches for the gear lever on autopilot. He's usually annoyed when she mocks his driving, particularly as she can't do it herself, but right now, now she's lying upstairs vacant and not herself, some of Martina's brand of mockery would be the nicest sound in the world.

Joey glances across at their daughter, engrossed in her phone, her thumbs texting so rapidly he's worried she's going to do them some damage. He should probably say something.

'Look, Belle, sweetheart,' he's not sure how to go on. 'You know your Mam…you know she's not…'

'She's not well, yeah, you said.' Belle's still messing around on her mobile, barely paying attention to him.

'Annabelle, will you put that down for a minute and listen?'

'Yeah_,'_ she lowers it to her lap, though he can still hear the buttons clicking.

'Belle, look,' Joey tries again. 'I think something's buggin' her. Something she doesn't wanna talk about, so…' he's not really sure what advice he's trying to give her. He supposes it's more than a heads-up, more than anything else.

Belle is watching him, eyebrow raised in a perfect mini-Martina expression. He'd laugh at how uncannily alike they can be, were the situation a bit different.

'So just…just…I just need you to know, that's all. Just be a bit considerate.'

Annabelle shrugs. 'Okay.'

And then Joey's pulling up at school and she's flashing her knickers again as she climbs out the car in that bloody short skirt (when Martina's better she'll have to deal with that, Joey decides. Women's problems and tarty behaviour are her territory; family values and general life lessons are his), and she's gone, and Joey sits for a while and ponders.

His phone bleeps. Oscar again. Joey deletes the text message without even reading it and drives home again.

* * *

Joey knows as soon as he re-enters the house that Martina is still in bed. It's not the empty parlour, Annabelle's breakfast things not cleared away in the kitchen and nothing new touched or used, or the unnatural silence that hangs over the house that clues him in, though all those things are unsettling when combined. He just knows. He has a sense. It makes his skin crawl.

He shakes off the unnerving feeling, tries to rationalise it to himself in whatever way he can.

_Martina is upset about something; she's clearly not well; you don't know, son, what she might've got, it could just be a stomach upset._

But even as he tells himself this he knows it's not.

Still, he hopes, prays, wishes with all his heart that she might be sleeping it off, that she'll awake refreshed and back to her lovably sarky, playfully irritable self and they can talk things over and all will be well.

He puts the kettle on, makes her a cuppa before he goes upstairs, a pathetic peace offering even though he's not sure exactly what's bothering her.

Martina's still in bed but she's sitting up, staring into space.

'Cup of tea?' he proffers it, smiling sheepishly though he isn't entirely sure what he's done wrong. How can he be if she doesn't tell him?

'I don't want it.'

'Well bloody hell, what _do_ you want?!' He shouldn't be yelling but he immediately does, because he's had just about as much as he can take. This isn't normal behaviour, this isn't right, this isn't Martina, and he just doesn't know how to cope.

'Nothing. I don't want anything.'

Joey rakes a hand through his hair.

'God, Martina – what's happened to you?'

His eyes alight on something beside her. Two new crochet squares, and suddenly something inside him clicks and it dawns on him _exactly_ why she makes them. He hadn't been able to figure it out in fifteen years. Now it's blindingly obvious. He wonders how he could have missed it.

They're stress relief. A coping mechanism. She's fiddling to try and calm herself down, concentrate on something monotonous.

Oh, God, how did he not see that before? All of a sudden a lot more suddenly makes sense.

She's been struggling all this time, all these years, so much more than he even realised.

'Martina,' Joey says gently, sits on the bed beside her, reaches for her hand. She pulls it away.

Joey's disheartened by this but he pushes on anyway.

'Whatever's goin' on with you, we're gonna get through this, okay? I promise you.'

That might not even be the right thing to say.

Martina is quiet for a little while, and when she speaks it's not what Joey expected at all.

'I won't be here for a while. I'm goin' somewhere.'

The words are strange to his ears, unexpected, bloody _terrifying_, because she's looking at anything but him, and what does she mean, going, going _where_, going _why_, going _forever, _going somewhere specific or just away from him?

'What's that mean?' he keeps his voice calm, even though internally Joey is gripped with a panic that eats his insides like acid. 'Going where?'

'I need to find something out.'

'Find what out?'

Martina shakes her head, and it's the fact that she's clammed up about it that makes Joey suspect what it is she wants to find out.

This can't be good.

That path has been closed to Martina for a long time – and with good reason, Joey knows, though he's aware she won't see it that way. She blames that situation for most of her struggles in life, warranted or not, and yet paradoxically she's blinded to the horrifying reality of it.

It's no good telling Martina anything isn't good for her, though. She's got a stubborn streak in her something awful, refusing to listen to external advice on anything, particularly personal matters.

_No-one can pull the wool over these eyes_, she'd boasted all those years ago, when Joey had blundered around a warning about Shifty. And a relationship that had nearly killed her was the outcome of her refusal to listen.

_I'm not leaving my job,_ she insists on a nearly weekly basis, when Joey has the nerve to suggest the abuse and sleepless nights she suffers at the hands of a position she's never liked could very easily go away were she to resign. And so she keeps suffering, frittering away years of her life that could be far more productively spent.

Shifty had told Joey, the last night they ever spoke, the last night Shifty ever lived, that Martina is a martyr born and bred. Determined to suffer. Joey begs to differ in his opinion. Martina isn't a martyr. She's just so determined not to trust anyone else over her own judgement, so afraid they'll lead her down a painful path that she can't see sometimes taking their advice would be all to the good.

And so he knows she won't listen now, especially in this frightful state, if he implores her to leave that stone unturned.

'When?' he asks instead of saying any of this.

'Tomorrow.'

Joey's heart plummets towards his gut. No, _no_, she can't be gone just like that. She can't just take no time to even think it over or talk about it with him before running off to do it. This isn't the Martina he knows. She's not rash. She's never been one to do drastic things. She's crossed a line, and Joey feels a shiver go down his spine at this. It terrifies him beyond belief that she's suddenly acting this way, having drastic ideas and following through with them, because if anything he's read is accurate (and he suspects it is), this could indicate she's making far more terrifying, more final plans. She's had those thoughts before, come close before. And seeing Shifty going that way, when Joey still feels in his heart that he could have done more to stop it… he can't let that happen to Martina. He can't.

The colour drains from his vision.

'Shouldn't you…' he ventures, though his usual ability to pluck words from the air and manipulate them into something elaborate is gone,'…think about this…a bit more?'

'_No.'_ Her voice is hard. Harsh. Final. The _do not argue with me_ tone hits his ears like a slap. 'I've made up me mind.'

'When…' Joey stammers. 'When will you be back?'

'A couple of weeks, maybe.'

And that's both a relief and a fresh hell for Joey, because she's at least planning on coming home for now, mustn't be thinking of topping herself…but a couple of bloody weeks?!

He's never been away from her that long, not since they married. It seems unthinkable not to wake up beside her, not to come in late after a job and have a pillow chucked at his head because he's woken her up, not to get into bed of an evening and be subjected to the standard hour and a half of thrashing that comes with her sleep-onset insomnia. To not come home to her or have her come home to him…to not have her tell Belle off for swearing, or him for stress eating or doing something a bit too dodgy for her taste…knowing all the while she's in the throes of an unprecedented emotional turmoil…what does she need a couple of weeks for anyway?

'What d'you mean,_ a couple of weeks, maybe?_' Joey demands. 'Have you thought what's gonna happen to Belle? What's gonna happen to me?'

'You mean,' Martina says venomously, as though he's on the other side of her counter, 'you don't want me to go because then who'll come running to wipe your little nose every time the going gets a bit rough?'

She's lashing out at him, words and tone designed to wound. He's forced her on the defensive without intending to. And the fact that, with just a couple of comments passed between them, Martina is this riled up means whatever's going on is really touching a nerve.

And Martina, as always, when something touches one of her more sensitive emotional nerves, ceases to cope. He doesn't want that. Not when she's already so terrifyingly fragile, when he's already afraid out of his wits she'll go too far.

Joey backs off.

'If it's what you want to do,' he says softly.

'It's what I _need_ to do.' Her voice is still hard.

'Okay,' he leans over her, kisses her forehead, though he's not sure if it's in a desperate attempt to bring her back to him from the depths of whatever she's been sucked into or merely to reassure her – or himself. 'Don't do anythin' daft, _please_.'

'I won't,' says Martina, and it's so expressionless he wants to tear out his hair.

'Is there anything I can do?' he asks desperately. He touches her shoulder and she flinches.

'Sometimes, Joey,' she says, not looking at him, voice and eyes distant, 'I feel so far away from you I don't know what to do.'

His heart misses a beat with a sickening thud. Joey doesn't know what to make of that comment, seemingly falling out of the blue. She's spiralling downwards, and in her fall she seems to be going backwards, undoing progress they've worked so hard on over the years, snatching back the trust Joey has carefully nurtured for so long. Or perhaps she's just finding it hard to connect, has retreated so far into herself this comment is all she can muster, a weak cry for help.

'Martina – '

'I want to be alone now.'

'Okay.' He goes, legs like lead.

_Please, Martina, come back_, he thinks as he leaves the room, feeling as though he's been tied to a stake, the flames of despair lapping at his feet. _Please, I don't know how, and I don't know what's happened, but please, just be all right again._

* * *

Joey had hoped she would change her mind sometime during the night, that sleeping on it might make a difference. But come morning Martina is up before he is, a bag packed and her coat on, drinking coffee in the kitchen.

'So,' Joey begins flatly.

'Don't try and talk me out of it, love.'

'I won't.' He comes round the table, opens his hand, offers its contents to her. One last desperate attempt to show he cares, and it may be pathetic but he doesn't know what else to do.

Martina takes her crochet hook from him, confused.

'You might need it.'

A weak smile crosses her face for a moment before it's smothered by blankness again.

'Thank you.'

'Are you gonna let Belle know? Or d'you want me to?'

'No, I'll…I'll do it.'

When she does tell Annabelle, Joey can see the flash of surprise in their daughter's eyes. Belle's normally quite good, as teenagers are, at pretending nothing fazes her. Not now, though. He doesn't blame her. Martina has always been a constant, dependable, guaranteed to be in the same places at the same times, to be on call if Annabelle needs her.

'Two weeks.' Belle's voice is disbelieving.

'Something like that.'

'_Why?'_

Martina inches her arms around her daughter, the two of them melding slowly into one, until Joey can no longer really tell which is which.

'Because I don't know what to do, sweetheart. I don't feel right at all. And I need to find out why.'

Belle pulls back, glaring, though with none of her usual vigour.

'You're coming back, _aren't you_?'

Martina holds her gaze, her eyes tired and sad. 'You're the very best of me, Annabelle. The best there is. The best there ever was. I promise I'll come back, love. All right?'

Annabelle seems less-than-satisfied with this, but willing to, in her Martina-inherited stubborn streak, hold her mother to it. Joey's glad she will. Belle can bring Martina to her senses like no-one can, that maternal instinct in Martina winning out when sometimes nothing else will.

'In the meantime, you are going to need to discipline yourself, and get your schoolwork done, and no goin' to Dad and gettin' him to let you off the hook. Your education is important whether you _think it's relevant_ or not.'

'Yeah, yeah.'

'Don't '_yeah, yeah'_ me, please. What do you need to do while I'm away?'

Annabelle rolls her eyes. 'Me _schoolwork.'_

'I'm gonna hold you to that.'

Belle shakes her head, reaches over and kisses Martina's cheek before she disappears off to school, refusing for the first time in her life to have anyone walk with her or drive her. She's trying to act nonchalant, but it's not really convincing. She's been shaken up something horrible.

And then Martina and Joey are left alone, an unpleasant silence hovering.

'How are you getting…where you need to go?' God, he doesn't even know _where_ she's going, this is so many levels of wrong Joey feels surreal even having this conversation.

'Train,' Martina murmurs.

'Can I drive you to the station?'

His voice is pleading, even though pleading with her never works.

Martina's eyes meet his, and for a moment he sees the pain swirling deep inside them before they become glassy again.

'Go on, then.'

She's quiet the entire ride. It's as if she's been lost so far inside herself she can't get back out, and Joey doesn't know what he can say, what he can do. He touches her arm as often as he can, and she doesn't stop him, though she doesn't touch him back.

She needs him, and she needs help, Joey realises, and _soon_. He's always been afraid she'd reach breaking point, that the depression that eats away inside of her might consume her one day – and now she has, and it has, and he doesn't know what triggered this other than Adrian's poem, and whatever he didn't listen to, and a faint suspicion about what she might be planning to do that may not even be right.

But whatever she's decided to leave for, he realises at the same time, she needs to do it. To face it. It likely won't help her overall, but it's something she has to do, and now, while she's on the edge of breaking. And it's something she needs to face alone. And she can't let him help her until she's done it. And though Joey has his suspicions of what she wants to do, what this secret mission is, is terrified of what it might do to her, he lets go of her.

'Be safe,' he says weakly, feeling more helpless than he's ever been in his life. 'Won't yer?'

Martina nods but doesn't look at him.

'Call me if anything goes…' _anything goes wrong _is not the most pertinent thing to say here, 'if you need help.'

She nods again.

'I love you, Martina.' His words are pitiful, pathetic, but he needs her to hear them. For his own sake as much as hers. He's terrified, seeing her this way.

She finally looks at him. Her eyes are empty, just dull blue glass behind which is nothing. She's still retreating into herself. She can't let any emotion touch her, not too much, or they might all come out and bury her. And so he knows she won't say _I love you_. Because she can't.

'I know.' Her voice is flat. She didn't actually say the words back. But it's all she can muster right now, and Joey holds onto it as tightly as he can.

He nods, unlocks the door for her to get out the car, kisses her goodbye. He watches her go until he can't see her anymore, and then Joey leans back against his car seat hyperventilating.

* * *

She sleeps for most of the train ride, despite how stressful the situation is, despite what she's going to have to do, and the thunderstorm of emotion it's going to cause.

While it's not happening she feels numb, apathetic. The sky is the colour and texture of steel wool, and it seems oddly to match what her insides feel like. A big, dark, rough mass, scouring out any feeling of anything.

Joey had looked absolutely devastated at the prospect of her leaving. Annabelle had been shaken. Martina doesn't like that she caused that, remembers her Mam's words again, but right now she can't really focus on it. It's just a blur among other blurs in her head. Jack, her parents, Shifty, Roger, that bloody swastika on her desk at work. Being inside her head right now is falling down a bottomless hole filled with thoughts and memories she doesn't want to go near. And because she doesn't have work hanging over her, her insomnia is strangely gone.

She sleeps, and for a little while it all goes away.


	4. The woman who couldn't text

**So I might have spent an entire morning looking through all the old Bread fandom conversations on Tumblr (soooo much of it was really dirty though haha...) so I'm in a very Joetina mood at the moment. And what better way to commemorate that than with more sad, depressing fanfic where they're apart for most of the chapter? Nah it's just that this one happened to be ready to go. Got some happier stuff in the pipeline and more of _For Better or Worse_ coming soon enough. **

**This one's got a few references to episodes of the show (including Christmas specials), the Shifty fic, Martina's old backstory, original ATEOTD and probably many other things. And as usual, don't own Bread, original Joey and this is JUST A STORY with no particular message about mental health. This will become increasingly important to stress in later chapters. I'm not advocating for/against anything in particular. People experience things in different ways. Just a story. The end. **

* * *

**III**

**The woman who couldn't text**

They get by, do Joey and Annabelle. As much as it's possible, they get by. They get chippy in the evening, because Joey can't cook, Belle won't cook and Joey can't face taking her to Kelsall Street to eat anything better. He doesn't want to admit Martina's gone. His Mam would surely start banging on about how Martina's 'left him,' even though she hasn't, slag off Belle's mother in front of her, draw comparisons to Roxy Joey doesn't want to hear because they're not true. Nellie falls too quickly into assumptions like those.

'She'll come back, Dad,' Belle says irritably when she sees him moping. 'She promised she would. Stop bein' so _pathetic_.'

But when he lies awake at night, running his hand over the empty space in the bed where Martina should be, he can hear Annabelle pacing around the passage.

He goes on jobs to keep his mind occupied. He suspects Belle does the same – for someone so young she's already got an awful lot of connections; he's sure he's seen her in some of the clubs he's working, tarted up to look older than her age and engaging in dodgy deals, only she always disappears before he can get close enough to her to ascertain that it's really her. He'd confront her, but she's gifted with her gob same as he is, and Joey knows he's got no way of proving anything no matter what tactic he tries. Besides, at the moment he suspects they both need to be doing it. Because if they don't, they think too much about Martina.

They become complacent about hiding what they're doing, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table organising dodgy merchandise, making dodgy calls, counting dodgy money, occasionally flicking pound notes into the pot and sharing guilty smiles before going back to their respective tasks.

Joey goes to Jack to check on him and it's just as well his brother is fine, because he can't keep focussed enough to have a proper conversation.

'Just…worried about you, sunshine,' he tries to lie when Jack calls him out on it.

'Give over. Summat's on yer mind, Joey.' Jack scowls when Joey refuses to elaborate. 'There are other things in life besides me ticker, you know. It's my operation this, my operation that, day and night – it'd be a _bloody relief_ to change the record for once.'

'Well…' Joey hesitates. He's told Jack his suspicions about Martina before, but still… 'Keep your gob shut around the others, but…summat's up with Martina.'

'If you ask me, something's always been up with 'er where you're concerned.' Jack laughs lecherously, winks at him. 'If you get my drift.'

'Jack!' It's good his brother's teasing but it's not welcome right now. 'Be serious. Her mood, it's just…plummeted.'

'Ah, she's a grumpy bugger. Always 'as been. She'll be okay.'

'I've never seen her like this,' Joey insists, desperate now. 'I'm _serious_, mate, it's not just a case of her bein' a bit down. This is different; I don't think…I don't think she can kick it this time.'

Joey puts his head in his hands. 'D'you remember when we spoke at Grandad's funeral, and…'

'And you said you thought her job might destroy 'er one day,' Jack finishes for him.

'I think…' Joey swallows hard. 'I think it 'as. It's like she just…she stopped functioning. And then two days ago she just announces out of the blue she's goin' somewhere for a few weeks and yesterday she up and went.'

'Left yer, 'as she? Didn't see that one coming.'

'_No she hasn't!_' Joey snaps a bit too harshly. 'She went to find things out…about her past, I think, but Jack…her past damaged her. I'm just worried if she doesn't cope with it…'

'She's not gonna top herself just 'cause Shifty did, you know.'

Joey wants to embrace Jack for catching his drift, for putting into words what he can't, but Jack's still recovering from his chest being cut open so he doesn't.

'She might, though.'

'Then go and get 'er back!'

'I can't…I don't know where she went.'

Jack looks at him like he's grown two heads.

'You'd better bloody find out, then, hadn't yer? If you're as worried as all that.'

Joey leaves uneasy, his conversation with his brother doing nothing to assuage his mounting dread. He turns his phone around and around in his hands, but something he can't explain stops him from dialling.

Martina's voice ricochets through his head.

_It's what I need to do_.

_Sometimes, Joey, I feel so far away from you I don't know what to do_.

He's got to trust her, let her do what she has to do. And he has to keep his promise to her. He has to keep her trust intact, now more than ever. She's already indicated it's slipping away from her. Letting her find out whatever she needs might be the only way to help it come back.

But never has the temptation to go against his promise been so strong.

* * *

The hotel Martina stays in reminds her of her old flat, back in the days when she'd just left Shifty. Cheap and nasty; tiny and dirty enough to be permanently uncomfortable, even though she'd pretended she liked it. A spider hole. Back then, though, being there, she'd been filled with hope, a strange hope born of having narrowly escaped sinking completely into the marsh of her own self-induced, Shifty-induced misery. Now, even though she's got something massive looming ahead of her, there's no hope inside her.

She could have afforded a nicer room, given her and Joey's combined incomes keep them in Gateacre of all places, but she's always been a creature of habit, sticking with what she knows. The bed's probably filthy but she lies back on it anyway, staring at the ceiling. She's not going to do it today. She's not ready. Tomorrow, though. She knows where it is; she's planned a route, printed it out; it's sitting in her handbag. She just needs a bit more time to accept the fact that she just made a change in her life, when change is something Martina usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming into. Usually by Joey.

It's midday, she's only just checked in, she could spend the whole afternoon looking around London, a city she's never seen before, but she's not really interested. She does instead what she usually does when it gets too much, when she wants to just numb herself into a state of nothing.

She sleeps again.

It's better than drink, is sleep, if you want to forget sometimes. There are nights, long nights, when she can't manage it at all, wracked with an insomnia that often leads to her abusing Joey with a pillow in frustration because he's resting and she isn't. And then, strangely, she has phases where she wants to do nothing _but_ sleep. She's in one of those now.

She sleeps until two in the morning, wakes up habitually because Joey often comes in around two. She reaches for him, realises he isn't there, registers where she is and then sleeps again.

* * *

Joey dreams of unpleasant things. He runs to Martina and can't find her, and then she's in the glass of a mirror, reaching for him and when he tries to grab her hand he finds he's simply touching his own reflection.

He wakes. He falls into another nightmare.

Martina is twenty-nine again, and behind the old DHSS counter, and he's young and blond and claiming, and she's crying about Shifty.

'_Not apathy, Mister Boswell. Despair. Throat-cutting, wrist-slashing, tablet-swallowing, stick-my-finger-in-an-electric-socket despair.'_

'No more despair,' he tries to reassure her, 'I've got you now.'

He takes her hands across the counter only to realise that the chair she's sitting on is actually Shifty himself, who's got his arms around her waist like a seatbelt, holding her back from coming to him. Trying to take her where he's already gone, where Joey's afraid she'll end up as well.

'Mister Boswell,' she begs him, '_please_.'

'What do you want me to do?'

One of her hands slips from his grasp as Shifty pulls her back.

'_Help me._'

The other hand starts to lose its grip. She scrabbles at him, trying to cling on, frantic now.

'_Please_. _No, please _– _JOEY!_'

He grabs at her fingers but he's lost her, and Shifty's dragged her through the back door, and that infernal recording from the new DWP barks out _Counter number three, please_, in its mechanical voice and someone shoves him onto the ground and he wakes up.

Joey lies in bed after that, drifting on the edge between consciousness and the hell his subconscious has prepared for him.

The door creaks slightly. Joey sits bolt upright, trying desperately to free himself from the last silken bonds of sleep, to force himself into a full state of alertness. It's taking longer than it used to – just another sign, he thinks sadly, that on top of everything else he's going through he's getting old as well. Losing it. Whatever 'it' is.

'Billy?'

Of course it's not Billy. Of course, his childhood in Kelsall Street is a lifetime away, is years and years in the opposite direction down the track, and it's been a very long time since Billy, as a small and fearful child, plodded across their shared bedroom and woke him up. But old habits are still very much ingrained, and no matter who's woken him over the years, be it Roxy, Oscar, Martina, Belle, the birds outside, his default is to enquire after his younger brother.

'Dad?'

'Oh,' Joey says, his senses returning to him. 'It's you, sweetheart.'

He reaches through the darkness, holding out his arms and letting Annabelle fly into them, cradling her gently against his chest. She's trembling. He doesn't blame her. Under cover of darkness she doesn't have to pretend to be impenetrable. No one can see her.

'I know…' Belle begins, and then sniffs. Joey waits for her to pick up her sentence.

'I know…' a sob catches in her throat.

'Hey, sweetheart, sweetheart – it's okay,' he runs his hand over the top of her head, stroking the matted mess of her hair– and she lets him touch it, which shows what a state she's in. Normally a touch of Belle's hair means death, or at least a stern reprimand. Annabelle convulses and shudders in his arms for a few more minutes, and then has another go at speaking.

'I know I'm too…' she snorts in an attempt to reverse the effects of a runny nose, 'too old to be crying, but…'

'No, Belle, no,' Joey says gently but firmly, holding her back to take her face in his hand. She probably can't see him – there's barely any light – but it doesn't really matter at this point. 'You're never too old to cry, sunshine. I mean look at me – I'm an old man – well, I'm not _old_, but, you know…'

His attempt to lighten the mood works to some extent. Belle laughs pathetically.

'You're older than the other dads.'

'Y-eah,' Joey says, exhaling and hoping it doesn't come out as a huff. Belle's always making comments about his age. '_An-_yway, Belle, the point is, I still cry when I'm scared, or hurt – or happy, even. It's a natural process, sweetheart. Just 'cause you think you're old enough to be above anythin' and everythin'…' another half-laugh from her, 'doesn't mean you can't let yourself…_feel_, does it?'

That's all it takes for his daughter to truly let go, to squash herself against him as hard as possible and collapse into a fit of sobs. And Joey's heart twists and writhes in pain – there is nobody in the world, no matter what they've done, he thinks, that ever deserves to see their child hurt – it brings tears to his own eyes once more. Oh, Belle. He's been suffering throughout all of this, unable to cope with the concept, the truth, the reality of Martina having had such a terrifying breakdown. He can only imagine what it's done to Belle.

Annabelle, despite her resemblance to Joey, personality-wise, despite how close he is with his daughter, is Martina's child through and through. Belle and Martina have a closer bond than he or any of his siblings ever had with Nellie – and that's saying something, given how remarkable a mother Nellie was, especially given she was mostly doing it on her own. Martina may seem aloof and cold at times to the rest of his family, may seem positively unbearable to her claimants at the DWP, but with Annabelle it's a different story altogether. She may be ostensibly, outwardly strict, but that woman is a soft touch wherever Belle's concerned – Joey remembers walking into the room several times after Annabelle was born and seeing Martina bent over her crib cooing to her, he remembers Martina teaching a young Belle how to hold a pencil, curling her fingers around the small girl's and helping her trace the letters of her name, holding her hand while she got her MMR jab, kissing the tears of pain and fear away and promising her it'd all be over quicker if she sat still, refusing to budge from the chair beside her hospital bed when Belle got her appendix out. She'd sat in that chair for at least thirty bloody hours before Joey had finally convinced her to go and get herself something to eat, and even then she'd been reluctant. It's always Martina that Belle tells her deepest secrets to, and despite the number of times Martina folds her arms and says _I thought I told you_, and clips Belle round the ear, it always seems to be Joey dishing out the serious discipline. Belle respects him, loves him in a way that would make any other father envious, but Martina is her first safe place, her first shelter.

And now Martina is gone, and for how long neither of them know.

_God, Martina, why now?_ _Why is this happenin' now?_ But even as he mentally berates his wife for her sudden spiral into the pits of something he doesn't fully understand, the monster of his own self-hatred creeps up to attack him. He's known she was suffering – he noticed _weeks_ ago something wasn't right with her, no, if he's honest, _years ago_, that Martina was retreating, that she was covertly reaching out for some sort of help, too proud and stubborn to admit she was struggling outright but desperately hinting at it regardless. It had started leaking out of her after Shifty died, her attempts to repress it failing.

He's got to fix this, somehow.

Neither he nor Annabelle sleep. He should encourage her to try, he knows that, but after an ordeal like the one she's just been through, watching her mother fall apart in front of her, he can't expect her to find a peaceful rest. He won't insist she renew her energy for school tomorrow – he'll keep her off. Under these circumstances, he's sure Martina wouldn't object.

Instead, they lie together, bundled up together in the bedclothes, occasionally whispering to one another, mostly just watching the sky get lighter outside.

'Dad?' Belle murmurs when the big hand on the clock reaches five.

'Mm?'

Annabelle deliberates, a few different comments visibly vying to be the one to leave the tip of her tongue.

'I love you,' she settles on.

Joey pulls her closer.

'I love you too, sweetheart,' he says.

'And Mam.'

Joey isn't sure whether she's stating the fact with regards to herself, or encouraging him to repeat it.

'And Mam,' he echoes, regardless, and encircles her even more tightly in his arms.

* * *

It's ironic, Martina thinks, that her brother's hospice has the same name as her husband. It's also a bit sickening walking through here, knowing, as she finds her way to the right inpatient ward, that this is palliative care, that she's going to walk out of here having found her brother, but her brother is never going to walk out of here again.

'Roger McKenna, please,' she says, when asked who she's here to see.

'And you are?'

'Martina Boswell.'

The nurse just looks at her, confused.

'I'm his sister.'

She gets a strange look and she can only guess at why, but she's ushered in the right direction, and then she's in a room with only one occupant. She casts around for a minute, wonders if Roger's undergoing tests, if he'll get wheeled back in in a moment. There's only an old man in here; he must be – no. She does a double take.

Martina's breath catches in her throat.

God, he looks horrifying.

Granted, it's been thirty years and she wasn't expecting him to be in the flower of his youth, but what she does behold shocks her.

He's filthy, he's aged terribly, he's got yellow skin, the whites of his eyes are yellow too, and she knows what that points to. And suddenly, this is all horribly real, and she thinks she might throw up.

'Mam?'

Martina is a bit startled by him mistaking her for their mother, but then again she was little more than a teenage girl when he left. He probably thinks, some part of him, that somewhere out there she still is, just as to her, somewhere out there, he was always in his thirties even as she herself aged beyond that. She trembles as she finds her voice.

'No.'

She comes closer, sits beside him, as close to the light as she can manage, so he can see her face better. He likely won't recognise it, but she hopes.

Roger watches her through narrowed eyes, studies her. And then his mouth drops open. He's got very few teeth, and the ones he does have, she notices, are almost black.

'Tina?'

Martina can't help it; in spite of everything, what he's done which she still doesn't want to believe, in spite of what he did to _her_, a smile breaks on her face. Tears come to her eyes too, contradicting it. It's been so long since she's been called that. His voice is older, croakier, but it still takes her back to one of the nicest parts of her childhood, the memory so vivid, the colours so bright she could be inside it right now. For a split second she's six years old, sitting in Roger's lap, his arms around her, and she feels a stirring of emotion inside her stronger than anything she's felt for years.

'Yes,' she says. It comes out as little more than a whisper, but he hears. She knows he does.

Roger wheezes out a strange sound, perhaps a laugh, she isn't sure.

'Well, whaddya know. Little Tina, come all this way.'

'D'you have any idea,' she has to stop, take a breath, because she might find herself getting angry and she doesn't want to do that to someone who's dying, 'how hard it was for me to find you?

'I didn't want you to find me.'

The words are like a knife to her heart, even though she's aware of this already.

'I know, yeah.'

'You know what I've done.'

'I do.'

'And yet you…forgive me?'

'Not my forgiveness to give.' Her voice has hardened at this. An admission has just come her way, forcing her into the realm of reality, onto a road she doesn't want to tread. Martina feels sick. It was always easier to believe the best of him, ignore the solid evidence he really was as bad as everyone made out. Ignoring the truth about him was a tactic that led to her ignoring the truth about Shifty, to destroying so many years of her life, sinking further into misery and suffering and being used.

'Why are you here?'

Martina bites her lip to stop herself crying.

'Because you're my brother and I…' she breathes out, heavily, struggling with the conflicting emotions attacking her, '…love you.'

'No-one should love me. After what I done. I don't. That's why I'm here, dyin' alone. Better for everyone.'

And he is right, in a way. He's terrible. There are plenty of people that would argue he doesn't deserve compassion, that he's beyond redemption. But Martina doesn't like to think that way about people, no matter what she pretends at work.

'Roger,' Martina says, softly, 'no-one should die alone.' She thinks of Shifty, his horrible end in the wreckage of a car by himself, only the throb of the motor for company. She still regrets that, even though she didn't know what, if anything, she could have done. She's not going to let her brother feel the same emptiness, aloneness.

It's funny, they've got three decades to catch up on and neither of them can think of anything to say.

Well, that's not entirely true. Martina's got several things she'd like to say, but she feels she can't. Not now, not when he's so unwell, not when –

'Why did you stay away?' It explodes out of her before she can suppress it.

Roger looks at her sadly. 'Tina…'

'Fifteen years you were out, Mam said, and it never even _occurred_ to you to speak to me? Not even a letter? Not one lousy bloody phone call just to let me know you were still _alive?!_'

'Martina…' Roger says, a bit louder this time, and then collapses into a coughing fit. Perhaps his liver's not the only thing on the blink. The noise is horrible, rattly, and it scares her so much it snaps her out of it.

'Oh, God…'

'I'm all right,' he croaks.

'You're not…'

'As much as I can be.'

'Should I call a nurse?'

'No.' He clears his throat. 'Don't go gettin' your knickers in a twist, Tina. Now, listen.'

Martina wants to interrupt, say something, but she's not sure what. He's got his hand on her arm, a weak grip but somehow, paradoxically, still firm, urging her to keep quiet until he's explained.

'I stayed away because didn't want to drag you down with me. I wanted yer to have a good life.'

'Hmm.' Bloody daft reasoning, him and their parents conspiring to try and _force_ her to be better without her consent. She feels a flash of resentment mingled with a flash of guilt. They did their best for her, all bloody three of them, and she's made some pretty horrific decisions regarding them, not realising their intentions were good.

'You wanted me to have a good life,' she repeats flatly.

'Have yer?'

Not for a great deal of it – and most of that was his fault, or partially because of him. Until almost age thirty-five, it had been hellish. The anguish she'd suffered, the relationships that mirrored her relationship with him, her enabling scoundrels and wasters and thieves and ending up with another deep wound in her heart every time.

But now there's Joey, there are the Boswells. She found refuge from her misery with a family she never thought she'd feel anything for but rage. And there's Annabelle, a child she was afraid to have, but whom she's never regretted bringing into the world, even if she is a cheeky little cow.

And she supposes he needs to know that, to set his mind at rest. She doesn't think what he did was right – at all – but he's bloody dying, and to tell him his misguided efforts to look out for her were in vain might finish him off.

Martina nods. 'Eventually.'

'Eventually?'

'Few false starts.'

'Fellas, eh?'

'Me ex was a carbon copy of you. Only it wasn't drink with him, it was stealing.' Roger is looking pained at this, so she tries to insert some humour. 'And he was Irish. Shifty they called him. I never knew his real name at the time.'

Joey had told her, after Shifty committed suicide. She'd been surprised; she'd never pegged him for a _Liam_. She couldn't have said what name she'd give him, though. He'd just been _Shifty_ for so long she couldn't have pictured him being called anything else.

'That's what I hoped _wouldn't_ happen.'

'Well, I managed to do better for meself than that.'

'Thought as much.' He nods at her left hand. 'I always thought it'd take someone pretty fantastic to convince you down the aisle.'

Martina holds up her hand, her rings glistening, reflecting the light. They haven't dulled over fifteen years; despite Joey's insistence that they hadn't cost too much, she's done a bit of research on her own and concluded they must be at least 18 carat to have kept their shine. Sneaky bastard. He's always trying to get her to wear expensive things.

'Yeah.'

'You've done well for yourself, pet. Rich husband, eh?'

'How d'you know he's rich?'

'That's a Ceylon sapphire.' He's poking a filthy fingernail in the direction of her engagement ring.

Martina looks down at it in surprise. 'Is it?'

'You've no idea what that is, 'ave yer?'

She shrugs. She can guess from her brother's awed tone it's somewhat valuable.

'What did you think it was?'

She shrugs again. 'Blue.'

That horrible wheezy laugh again. 'I've flogged jewellery, now and again. Picked up a bit of knowledge, doing that. That _blue_ is probably worth a couple of thou.'

Oh, bloody Joey, she's going to use this ring to gouge his eyes out.

'Any little Tinas?'

'One. A girl.'

'How old?'

'Thirteen.'

Roger smiles his gummy smile.

'Champion, that is.'

And Martina's taken aback, because that's a word he never used, and now she thinks about it she realises his accent has morphed. It's all mixed up. He must have lived in a few different places over the years. She can hear some Yorkshire, some London, maybe Lancashire, the Scouse just another twang among the heap.

She flips open her phone, shows him her screen. She doesn't really understand how to use it all that much; it's an old cast-off of Joey's he'd bestowed on her against her will, insisting she had to keep with the times (or the slightly-outdated times but close enough). She can do little other than phone and text (barely) and play Snake because Joey taught her (that's one of its better features, she must admit. She sometimes plays it at work when there's a lull in the queue for her counter). It has a camera, though she doesn't know how to make it work (and she ignores the fact that Joey boasts about his _two_ cameras and touch screen. Flashiness doesn't impress her). She'd asked Joey to take a photo of Belle and make it her background, and it's this image, a bit grainy but still a good enough representation of her daughter, that she shows her brother now.

Something strange comes over her brother.

'She looks just like you. 'Cept the conk.'

Martina rolls her eyes, even though she's teased Joey about this in the past.

'Your hair.'

'I know.' Roger's hand moves towards his head. He wheezes out a laugh. 'Hope she fares better than me.'

He's talking about his hair, she knows, grey and thinning and greasy now, but the comment sobers Martina up, makes her think of another context for it.

'She will,' Martina says in a hard tone. She sees the guilt flicker across his face momentarily and can't decide whether she regrets saying it or not. Her brother mercifully changes the subject.

'House and a dog?'

'House in Gateacre.'

He whistles. 'Nice one.'

'Great fat Alsatian called Edgar.'

'Edgar?!'

'My husband calls all his dogs Edgar. Every single one.' It makes her smile wryly, reminding her, back in the day, of when she'd called all her goldfish Boswell. Another example of how alike they are, despite how much they try to deny it in public. 'This is Edgar number…four? Now?'

She smirks at the memory in spite of the situation, in spite of the fact that her body feels like an enormous pit of blackness into which her feelings are slowly being sucked.

'His first Edgar got stolen a long time ago, before I was around. Edgar II took on a bus and lost. The third Edgar was a girl and we 'ad to give her away because she kept running off and getting pregnant and sprayin' litters of mongrel bastards all over our back garden.'

Roger laughs at her hyperbole.

'This one's bloody obese. He can hardly get into much trouble.'

Martina never shares this much about her life with other people. Even the mundane details she keeps to herself, unless she's talking to Joey, unless she's laying on thick what she's been through to one of Joey's brothers or one of her more obnoxious claimants at her work who has it better than they think. And even then, with the exception of Joey, she only ever divulges nonspecific information.

She's always found it so natural, so instinctual to trust Roger. It's like breathing.

'What's your name now?'

'Boswell.'

'Boswell…' Roger chews on this, 'you wouldn't know a Freddie, would yer?'

Martina's taken aback.

'He's me father-in-law.'

'Nice one. I knew 'im. Your father-in-law. Played the odd round of poker with 'im in me days, before I came up here. Bumped into him in the pub every now and then. He was a good laugh, Freddie Boswell. Had this tart with him more often than not.'

'That would be Lilo Lil,' Martina says, astounded. It's surreal that somewhere out there, while she was wondering what had become of him, he was under her nose, in contact with a member of her extended family who had no idea whom he was talking to.

'Never knew me name, if that's what you're thinkin',' Roger insists, as though reading her mind. 'I went by another one.'

'Hmm.'

'So. Joey, Jack, Jimmy or Billy?'

'How d'you know that?'

'Told you. He was me mate. Long time ago, but…me memory's good, even if me body's on the blink.'

'Oh,' Martina ponders this. 'Joey.'

'Grand.'

'You don't know him,' Martina says defensively.

'The blond one, eh?'

'Not for a long time.' She wonders exactly how long ago it was that Roger spoke to Freddie Boswell. Joey hasn't been blond since the early '90s. When he walked back into her life in 1994, he'd only just cut his hair, having grown the last vestiges of the bleach out, looking, she had to admit, a lot better for it. She's never been able to work out whether the change of image was one of those dramatic, post-breakup affairs after Roxy (she'd been through one herself after Shifty, no more curls, darker eyeshadow, more aggressive attire), or simply because Joey likes to update himself as fashion changes, new style jackets, new style jewellery, new phone every year with daft little features like touch screens and internet access he doesn't need but insists he does. Except for the leather trousers. Of all the hideous '80s trends, she's wondered time and time again, why did it have to be those damn leather trousers he held onto?!

'You're thinkin' about him, aren't you?'

Martina blinks. 'Sorry.'

'Nice to see that. You've been married long enough and still can't get 'im out of yer mind.'

'Just thinking about how _vain_ he is,' she says truthfully, and laughs, and Roger laughs back despite not really knowing why.

'It's nice, pet. To see you've got something good goin' for yer.'

'God, I wish I could say the same for you.' That comment sobers both of them up again.

'So do I.' His voice is so quiet, so soft he's almost in another dimension.

Martina reaches towards him, squeezes his hand. His nails are like claws. No matter.

'Go home, Tina. Go home to your husband and your daughter. Tell 'em you love 'em. Forget me.'

'If I couldn't forget yer in _thirty years_,' she can't help it, there's pain in her voice as she utters the words _thirty years_, bitterness, but she can't help it, 'what makes you think I can now?'

* * *

It's their fifteenth wedding anniversary today and instead of celebrating, Joey finds himself shaking and crying, unsure whether it's from hurt, guilt, desperation or fear.

He still hasn't heard from Martina. He still doesn't know if she's okay, if she's bloody alive. He replays the memories in his head, assaulted by each one, the good because he wishes he could have preserved them, kept her in that state, the bad ones reminding him he's a failure. That he failed her.

He's got a couple of jobs to do today but Joey stays in bed instead, postponing them via text, rearranging in-person appointments so he can work from home this afternoon, then ringing Adrian, imploring him to come and pick Annabelle up for school so he can stay in bed longer still (Belle had insisted on going in spite of their lack of sleep, and has been insisting now she can go on her own, isolating herself somewhat since Martina's departure, but Joey doesn't want her on her own at the moment. He doesn't want to lose both of them in one fell swoop. Besides, she still enjoys spending time with Adrian's Davey; she can hardly complain about that).

Joey lies in until about twelve, thrashing restlessly rather than going to sleep, fiddling with his mobile rather than taking any action, looking at photos of Martina on it until he thinks he's going to go mad if he doesn't _do_ something.

Unsure what his next move is, he slides over to her side of the bed, decides on a whim to pull open her bedside drawer in case there's something in there which could explain how she's feeling, give him some clue what she needs. She'd kill him if she knew he was planning on going through her things, but, well, she's not here.

It's mostly just ordinary junk – a half-used packet of paracetamol; a small bottle of her rose-scented hand cream; a hairbrush. He roots a little bit deeper. Four more crochet squares emerge (bloody hell), one half of a pair of suede gloves he bought her years back (she probably lost the other one). Joey pushes his hands right into the back of the drawer, finally alighting on the things she cares about more. A photograph of her and her brother, recognisable to Joey even though he's never met the bloke, child Martina looking happier and more innocent than he's ever seen her. A lock of Annabelle's baby hair in a little box. A Valentine's card from him, from the year they got married. That hideous pink bead necklace Joey has always hated, but which she's never let him throw out, leading him to suspect there's a sentimental value to it he's unaware of. Stuck in the crack at the back is a little gift tag, shiny and red; Joey pulls it out, puzzled, and reads the inscription, surprised when he sees his own handwriting.

_Dear Martina, instead of screaming next, press one and squeeze two. Greetings and best wishes, the Boswells._

Joey doesn't know whether to laugh or be incredibly moved that, though he gave her that Christmas gift as a joke back in '89 before they were ever involved, sent it over with Aveline and regretted he was too busy to actually go in and see her face, she's hung onto the card all these years. It was from long before his time, before he meant anything to her other than a source of irritation, and she still kept hold of it.

He keeps rummaging.

There's a pocket-size 1987 diary, pages yellowing and falling to bits, in which Joey finds strange or downright daft comments bracketed by quote marks, given odd labels such as _Wilson_ or _Cullen_ which Joey realises are amusing things various claimants have said to her. He flicks through it until he finds _Boswell_, sees his own words staring up at him in her writing: _on account of the fact that society has produced an unsafe atmosphere in which to live, rendering the human person in need of alternative protection (guard dog). _He'd thought she was joking all those years ago when she said she'd written some of his choicer comments in a little laugh-a-minute joke book. It looks now like she really had, and he wonders if that was her way of getting through the day.

And Joey wonders, as he clutches the dilapidated little book between his fingers, how many other things he'd assumed were jokes or teases she'd actually been dead serious about. Another flood of guilt washes through his system.

She's been struggling a lot more than she _ever_ let on. More than Joey _ever_ realised, even though he'd always been concerned about her.

And like a great idiot, he missed crucial signs.

* * *

She's chucked out when visiting hours are over and returns to her hotel room, completely uninterested once again in going anywhere.

Martina lies there for the rest of the evening, barely eating even though she's got herself some dinner, mulling it all over. She doesn't feel better at all, having seen him. How could she, after all? He's dying. He's admitted to the horrific things their Mam alluded to.

He's admitted to deliberately hiding from her and all, even though he must have known how it crushed her not having him around.

But strangely enough, that's not what's deflating her. It's the fact that her life doesn't make any more sense than it used to.

It occurs to her at some point that it's her wedding anniversary today. She doesn't think about her wedding much; it was an ordinary day to her, really. She hadn't wanted to go much further than signing a piece of paper, had argued down some of Joey's more extravagant ideas and they'd settled on a reasonable compromise: Oswald's church, minus the aisle, minus the fancy dress and minus the reception afterwards, bare minimum ceremony – but on Joey's insistence with proper rings and the Boswell family present. It had stirred up more emotion within her when they'd moved into their house together just afterwards, when they'd wallpapered it together (and thrown most of the glue at each other), set up their furniture, spent their first night in it knowing they weren't going back to her tiny flat ever again. That had seemed more permanent, more final, more definitive proof Joey wanted to truly commit and make a home with her, and she'd suddenly had so much to her name that the part of herself convinced she'll never amount to anything had had to fight hard to make a resurgence. She'd been happy – content, at least – for a while, had even skived off work just to spend time with Joey. It had been one of the best times in her life, those few months after they just married and she finds herself missing it all now, wondering now she's disappeared the way she has what she'll come home to. No matter how secure, how happy she's felt at times since marrying Joey, a small part of her still can't shake the feeling that one day, should Joey know what darkness lies inside her at times, it might all crumble into pieces. That she might lose him, even though he makes an effort every day to try and prove she won't. And she knows that, most of the time – but there's always that little voice in her head that tells her otherwise.

It's back again now and it whispers to her, reminds her. Joey hadn't listened to her in a time of need. His obsession with finding Roxy's son had culminated in him handing over large sums of money to him, letting him harm Annabelle emotionally, reinforcing a fear she'd had for years that she and Belle were consolations. It's a fear that on good days, she can laugh off as preposterous, a fear that on bad days eats her alive. Ever since that incident with the five thousand pounds, Martina has felt herself drift a little further from Joey, finds herself swimming upstream to reach the level of openness and trust they once had. That fear is swirling around in her now, mingling with the thought that now she's gone off, giving Joey no notice and no information, there is the possibility he may start to doubt her, may start to realise there's something severely wrong with her, may disappear himself…probably will, the way her luck goes. And when he does, the grey emptiness stretches ahead of her with no end.

Martina shuts her eyes, but it does nothing to dispel the voice. If anything, it's louder. She opens them again, forces herself to concentrate on the here and now. Roger can't have long, judging by the state of him. And he's right; being around him will only hurt more. She should go home.

_Go home to your husband and your daughter. Tell 'em you love 'em. Forget me._

As if she can. As if she can just do that.

It was daft for him to even suggest such a thing. She's never been able to stay away from her brother, in spite of his influence on her, in spite of the harm he's done her in the past. When he's in trouble – _especially_ now he's dying – there's nowhere else she could possibly be. She mocks Joey about his obsession with family unity, running to bathe his siblings' wounds when the going gets rough, but when it comes down to it she's no better.

He had one good idea, though. And she's going to act on it.

* * *

Joey wastes the afternoon playing around on his laptop, not really working, typing search terms into Google that send him down hideous holes.

_Nervous breakdown_

He skims a few articles, feeling a bit sicker each time.

_Shutting down and isolating, missing appointments, work and other responsibilities_… no, he's got to stop reading this.

Really, he should put it away. It's just intensifying his worry.

He ignores his own advice.

_Nervous breakdown + depression_

Oh, God. He wishes he hadn't. It just confirms his theory.

_When left untreated, additional stress can intensify the low mood and lead to a nervous breakdown. _

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Jack's heart attack. The extra stress she's been having at work. Whatever happened with her family that he didn't listen to…it's been piling on, and if he factors in the horror of what happened to Shifty, which she's left unchecked to fester…she's been walking on a cliff edge and now, it appears, she could have gone off it.

And he let her go off Heaven knows where in this state.

Bloody hell, what a mess.

Joey wrestles with himself, the urge to ring her and tell her he's coming to get her right this minute waging war against the part of himself that's desperately trying to hold on to her trust. She needed to do this. She'd told him, desperation floating somewhere underneath the surface of her flat, emotionless face and voice. To stop her now might make things worse.

But just because it's what she _thinks_ she needs doesn't mean it's the right thing. She _needs_ to be looked after. She _needs_ someone to take the damn reins off her, tell her _no, you cannot cope with this all on your own_, and guide her gently in the direction of help.

Edgar IV lopes up to him, presses his muzzle against Joey's knee, whining. Much as she pretends she hates their dogs, much as she complains Edgar IV is too fat, that Joey and Belle indulge him too much, Martina's a soft touch with him when she thinks no-one's around.

'I know,' Joey murmurs, scratching his ears. 'I miss her too.'

More than misses her; he's downright worried. Joey fiddles with his phone, puts in her number about a hundred times, always holding off on ringing her at the last split second, a little voice inside him telling him to wait just a little bit longer.

Bloody hell, though, she's only been gone two days. If the timeframe Martina gave him was accurate, she could have twelve more to go. This is a nightmare, it really is.

Joey doesn't get any work done. He struggles to eat a full meal, although when he's pacing in agitation later he downs half a packet of Scotch fingers without really knowing what he's doing. Nearly the entire day he worries, frets, pulls at his hair.

Until that afternoon, Annabelle gets a text message.

'Eh,' she says, grinning at Joey.

'Not in the mood, Belle.'

'I got a text.'

Joey's sick of hearing her inane conversations with her friends and listening to her play novelty ringtones she's ordered that he doesn't understand, so he ignores her, puts his cup of tea up to his face even though he's not really interested in drinking it.

'Don't you wanna know what it says?'

'No.'

'I'll be sure to tell Mam that in me reply.'

Joey drops his cup to the ground. He'll have to clean the spill up before Martina gets back, but right now he doesn't care. The fact that Martina is sort of nearby, albeit just through a couple of words in cyberspace, has shaken him.

'Why didn't you _tell_ me it was from Mam?!'

'You didn't let me get that far, did yer?!' Her eyes flick over her phone again, and Belle snorts.

'What?'

'Well, you know Mam. She can't type, can she? _Sad.'_

Annabelle is back to pretending she's too cool to care about anything, but Joey can tell that beneath that mask, she's made up about it.

'What's it say?'

'If you factor out all the numbers in there…' Belle says, and Joey laughs, because Martina always ends up inadvertently inserting numbers into her texts. She can't work out how many times to press the button before she gets the letter she wants and then can't work out how to delete mistakes. Any attempts to teach her result in a grumble about how she hates technology, and she never does let herself learn how to do it.

'I think it's supposed to say _do your schoolwork, no really, I mean it.'_

'Well, that's…something.' Joey considers, trying to hide the jealousy he's feeling towards his own daughter, that she heard from Martina and he didn't. 'And are you?' Doin' it, I mean?

'Yeah, _yeah.'_

Annabelle wanders off upstairs to her room and Joey goes into the parlour and broods a bit, ambivalently torn between being relieved Martina's alive and well and concerned he hasn't heard from her.

He receives his own text later that evening as he's sitting in his reclining leather armchair in front of the fire, pondering.

_1 New Message. Martina_.

His heart leaps as he opens it.

_i l56ve y6u_

Joey touches the screen as if he can reach through it and touch her. It's nothing fancy, and the fact that it's full of typos irks him against his will, but it makes something shift in his heart. He can't work out if that's sadness, an overwhelming sense of missing her, worry about what's happened or relief, because even though he knows she does, a part of him was beginning to panic she didn't love him anymore. She's given him what she couldn't before, said what she couldn't before, and he calms a little, hoping even if it's a stupid false hope that this means she's not going to do anything to herself.

He debates replying – will she want one? – but then decides in its favour. Better play it safe, make sure she knows he's still there for her. Better annoy her than let her feel abandoned.

He starts to type.

* * *

Martina's drifting in and out of a semi-consciousness in her greasy hotel bed when her phone chirps.

She reaches for it blearily, flips it open.

_1 New Message. Joey. _

Her heart pounds, though she's not sure why. She unlocks it, opens the text.

_I love you too sweetheart._

Bloody Boswell bastard. Showing off he can send a text with all the letters right. Punctuation and capitals and all, which she's never worked out.

Something settles within her chest at it though.

She sleeps with the phone cradled close.

* * *

'You're back _again!_ I'd offer yer a cuppa, but I don't think I've got any.'

Roger's trying to tease her, but his voice is weaker even than yesterday and he falls into a hacking fit so intense Martina is genuinely afraid of seeing him cough a lung up onto the bed.

'Ah, it's all right,' he insists when he sees the fear on her face. 'I've 'ad worse.'

Martina just arches an eyebrow.

'All right, p'raps not. Not the end of the world, though. You get everything when I die.'

'I don't think I want to be landed with your debts, thanks ever so.'

He laughs at that, but she doesn't want to sit around while he tries to be flippant. Martina shifts uncomfortably in her chair. It's selfish, what she wants to say. The man's dying, for God's sake. She should give him nothing but nice memories to take away with him. But she's desperate to know.

'Roger, you said…' she begins. 'You said you wanted me to have a good life but – couldn't you have said _something_ to me? Explained why you had to go? I heard from one of me _colleagues_ who shoved a newspaper in me face three days later!'

'Tina, I went through this – I didn't want you mixed up in all that.'

'And instead, you left me for dead. I woke up one morning and you were gone. That was it. No explanation, nothing.' Something occurs to her. 'And it was me bloody birthday and all.'

She's shaking now, angry even though she feels guilty for being angry at a dying man. She's been angry about this, beneath the hurt and sorrow, all this time. She just never got to let it out until now.

'If I stayed with you, pet, if I'd come back even just to say goodbye…the coppers were after me. They could've taken you too. They might've accused you of bein' involved, an accessory, hidin' me…dunno, but I didn't want that to happen to you. The less you knew, the better off you'd be for it.'

'But _afterwards_,' Martina insists, gritting her teeth so hard she feels them grind, '_surely_ when you got out…didn't you _even think of me?_'

Martina's normally self-possessed when confronting people, no matter how much she's falling apart inside her head. That's what comes from working in civil service for so long.

But in front of her brother, the first man who broke her heart, she's a child again, vulnerable and small and crying openly.

'_Afterwards_,' Roger echoes, 'I was so ashamed, pet. I couldn't face yer. I know you thought the world o' me and…I'd let you down. Dad always said I was the worst influence you could've ever 'ad and after that…I realised he were right. And Martina, you've always been…a bit more breakable than most. You soak up all the hurt like a sponge and I didn't wanna add any more to that. I wanted yer to heal. Move on.'

He reaches out to her, takes her hand in his claw. 'Eh, don't cry.'

She can't stop, though.

'Roger, you…' the words are hard to get out, to admit, 'you crushed me; I couldn't… I couldn't just heal, there's been a great hole in me all this time that I can't fill with anything. No matter how good things are, it doesn't go away.'

Roger shuts his eyes, sighs. 'P'raps I should've reached out to yer. I thought I was doin' the right thing, that's all. I always wanted the best for yer…and I wasn't it.'

He reaches out a feeble arm to her. 'C'mere.'

Martina lays her head against his shoulder. He's pretty disgusting, smells like death, but no matter. In some ways, it's as if thirty years without him never happened. They sit there like that for a long time, and something strange comes over Martina. She still can't shake the feeling that what happened wasn't right, wasn't fair, but her anger is abating more rapidly than she'd expected, draining down a plughole now she's finally had a chance to let it out.

'I love you, pet,' Roger says at length. It seems an effort just to get the words out. 'You're me sister…a little ray of sunshine in me bleak life. Even now.' And then he wheezes again, coughs up phlegm.

'Don't try to talk,' she whispers.

She comes back the next day, keeps the conversation within more cheerful boundaries, volunteers more information about her life, Annabelle, Joey. Watches him smile, his eyes light up. Regales him with a few amusing stories about Joey and some of his more ridiculous claims over the years (he laughs with her about _we need a suit for our Jack and our Billy_, even more so when she tells him about the sad violin music she played to accompany it), about Annabelle when she was little, including Joey's claim that her first word was _cash_ (she's still iffy on that one).

By late afternoon, Roger is barely able to speak to her. His breathing is more laboured.

'Tina, I don't think…' he stops abruptly. Martina reaches out, grabs his hand.

Though she stays him for another few hours, comes back the next day and stays with him all day, Roger says nothing more. He can't. He's lost the strength. She's just waiting for the inevitable now.

And when she finally does slip away, something inside her is released, and something sinks and she's not sure how to make sense of either.

Roger was, after all, everything they made him out to be and worse. He's admitted he took advantage of her trust in him, when his addictions proved too strong to overcome. And yet in spite of that his love for her was unwavering, even to the point of self-sacrifice, removing himself from her for her own good.

Her brother was not a good man.

He loved her.

Neither one of these facts cancels the other out.

Neither one of them calms the unrest inside her.

* * *

He'd been a bit reassured from speaking to her, but Joey's slipped back to worrying again. He tries to keep his days filled, drives Annabelle around in his Jaguar S-type when the weekend comes round, because he knows she'll appreciate it (and she does, though he suspects it's lacking some of its lustre because of the bigger worry hanging over them both). He takes Belle to see Jack, Leonora and Ryan (his brother continues to improve, thankfully, with the support of his partner and son), pops in to his Mam on the way home (both of them keeping mum on why Martina didn't join them, settling on _migraine_ as a good excuse for her absence). He takes Nellie and his daughter to Mass and offers up a silent prayer for Martina. But when Sunday evening rolls around, Joey has nothing left to do but sit there and think and panic.

He keeps his phone on the arm of his chair, one ear cocked for its sound, still jumping half a foot in the air when it rings.

'Hello, yes?'

'Joey, I know you don't believe me, but I really did phone because I wanted to hear from you.'

Joey's heart does a painful twist at Oscar's voice.

'Look, son, this isn't a good time –'

'I really do need your help.'

'Er – I thought you just wanted to hear from me.'

'I do!' Oscar sounds annoyed, and Joey has no idea what he's playing at.

He sighs. 'What is it you need?'

'Just a small loan.'

'For what?!'

'Ex-penses,' Oscar says evasively. It might be years of being married to a DHSS lady, but Joey knows how to interpret that.

'You mean you're in debt and you can't pay up.'

'Anyone can make it sound _tacky_.'

'Oscar, I don't have time for this. I like hearin' from yer, son…' or he would anyway, if Oscar ever did just want to catch up, which he never does, 'but Martina's not well and I…'

'And you've got your own family, your _new wife_ and your _real_ daughter,' Oscar snaps, 'and they're your priority. I take the point.'

'You are _still_ one of my priorities!' Joey insists, 'but you can't just be careless with yer money and expect me to bail you out! Especially after what happened last time…'

'You'll never forgive me for that, will you?'

'I've forgiven yer, it's just…it makes it hard to trust what you say, that's all! And…' Joey bites his lip so hard it bleeds, 'and I can't do this just now. Martina needs me; she's _not well_. I'll talk to you later, son.'

'Joey – '

'Take it easy.' And he's hung up, tremors running through him.

Oddly enough, unlike last time, Joey doesn't bother to fret about it. He can't right now. The only person he wants to hear from is Martina. He hasn't heard from her in two days and he's getting worried again.

He doesn't hesitate to send a message this time. She's going to know he cares, whether she likes it or not.

* * *

Martina cries for a little while, but it's strange, hollow, and she's not exactly sure what she's crying _for_. Her brother's life, certainly. The time they could have had, possibly. The fact that she wouldn't accept the truth, that that decision has coloured most of her life, sent her into a pit of despair more times than she can count…could be. The fact that she finally has closure, and it doesn't seem to have taken away what's eating her, plays a part in there somewhere as well, and it's all too much. She forces it away, shuts her eyes, tries to think of nothing for an hour or so.

She's just staring at the ceiling of her hotel room now, watching a moth crawl across it. There's a numbness to her mind she can't really fathom, mingled with her sadness and oddly enough, relief. Her emotions seem dulled, echoes of what she thinks they should be, as if she's simply observing them, touching her own brain, detached, through a haze.

Her phone chirps and she reaches for it.

_1 New Message. Joey._

Good timing, in a way. She needs something to hold onto, some of his obnoxiously well-typed Boswell prose declaring his concern for her. Then again, this could be an angry message for all she knows. She hasn't heard from him in a few days and if she dwells on what she's done too long, a part of her starts to assume – no, be _certain_ – that that's it for them. That Joey will have had enough.

_Hope you're okay. Belle and I miss you. _

Martina isn't okay – although strangely this doesn't feel all that much worse than how she's been feeling every day anyway.

But at least it was words of comfort, after all.

She struggles with the buttons for a while, tempted to give up, bite the bullet and ring him – but while she wants to keep in contact, keep him close, she's not up to properly talking to him. She still feels distant from him, though she's not sure why.

She perseveres with her text.

_i mis7 you 2 _

Close enough. She debates, sends a follow up.

_bt i had t6_

The reply comes so quickly she wonders how he manages. It's as if he just thinks the words and they appear.

_Are you ready to come home?_

Well. She did what she came here to do. And Roger is gone. There's no reason to stay.

She wrestles with the annoying buttons again for a while, fingers tripping over each other in her attempt to get a response into the world.

* * *

She's texting him again – and Joey may have initiated it but it's still a good sign, he thinks. She's alive. She misses him. Only problem is, her sparse texts don't convey enough information – she may be well, physically, but is she coping, or is she falling deeper inside herself?

Joey isn't sure whether he's pushing her too far, but he's slowly losing a battle of self-control. He wants to be with her – at least physically in the same space, looking after her, keeping an eye on her. It might infuriate her, but he asks the question anyway, even though he's not expecting a reply in the affirmative. Just so she knows he still wants her to return, just so she never forgets, even for a moment, that he's thinking of her.

_Are you ready to come home?_

The reply comes five minutes later. Probably how long it took her to write it.

_ys _

* * *

'When's she comin' home?'

'Didn't say.'

Belle's trying not to look too eager, but under her perpetual scowl and thick, dark raccoonish eyeliner something has shifted in her countenance.

'I expect tomorrow. Bit late today.'

It's already after nine and Joey's not sure how far away she is, but Martina's not one for late-night jaunts anywhere. They've got one last opportunity to be complacent anyway; half the kitchen table is cluttered with Joey's dodgy paraphernalia, the other half with Annabelle's, the pot in the middle in between them, top off, their respective stashes of pound notes poking out.

'_Dad,_' Annabelle whines as he adjusts himself, pushing one of his boxes too close to her stuff. 'Get your shit off my side of the table! I'm trying to work! _Fuck!'_

'_Annabelle!'_

They hear her before either of them register she's there in the room, and before can process it, she's clipped Belle round the ear.

'I've told you, _haven't I_, about usin' language like that! _Haven't I?'_

Her voice sounds more like the real Martina than it has in a long time. But one glimpse of her confirms things aren't just going to magically go back to normal. It's a front. Martina's eyes are flat, hollow. She's doing what she does best, pulling herself together enough to get through, drawing from her inexplicable reserves of outer strength to patch over the mess inside herself and put on a good shop-front.

Years ago, Joey had admired this trait in her. Now it concerns him. And he feels another stab of guilt that he didn't do something before.

Annabelle is grinning broadly, despite her ear being rather red. She can't keep her gob in a straight line.

Martina's mouth twists, and then a smile contorts its way onto her face as well.

And when Belle leaps out of her seat and throws her arms around her, Martina embraces her so fiercely Joey feels his eyes prick just watching.

'Did you do _any_ schoolwork while I was gone?' Martina murmurs into her hair.

'Some.'

'Some's better than none, I suppose. But we will be discussing _this,' _Martina releases her to gesture at the kitchen table, at whatever Annabelle's working on scattered across it, 'at length later.'

'Yeah, _but_,' Belle says cheekily, gathering it all up into her arms, 'if you can't find it, we can't discuss it.' And then she disappears upstairs with it, back to pretending she doesn't care, even though Joey knows she does. She's so pleased to see her Mam again she didn't even get pissed off about being smacked.

Fat Edgar waddles up to her, sticks his nose up her dress.

Martina smirks in spite of herself.

'Stupid dog.'

Joey waits while she half-heartedly pets the Alsatian, unsure whether he should say something or let her make the first move.

His gob, on the other hand, has other ideas.

'I thought I'd lost you,' he blurts out, tongue moving without consent of his brain.

Martina looks at him, her face uncertain.

And though he's not sure really how he should be reacting, feeling he ought to give her a bit of space, feeling a little bit angry he had to go all this time without her, he moves without thinking. Joey gets up, pulls her into his arms, embraces her for all he's worth.

And though he can feel some rigidity in her stance and what seems like a bit of fear, she hugs him back, her hands clutching his shoulders like claws.

* * *

**Fun fact, in the original draft of this (which was quite different) it was Joey who found Martina's brother and not Martina herself. I prefer it this way, though, because Martina needs to have everything taken away that she _thought_ was causing her misery so she can actually realise there's an underlying issue. Which means, sadly, she's in for some even rougher times in upcoming chapters. **


	5. A conversation

**This is the first part I actually wrote for this fic, back in the day, that kind of spawned the rest of it. It ties in with ATEOTD chapter 10, when they first got together, which was all from Martina's POV, but Joey finally gets to give her some insight into what he was thinking at the time. And this is also the part of the fic the rest has been building up to, and a lot of this headcanon/universe. Martina's earlier mission was sort of secondary to what comes after it, because it made her realise something she didn't want to own up to for years. **

**As always, I don't own Bread, original Joey, and this is not meant to give any particular message about how to handle mental health. It is just a story. **

* * *

**IV**

**A conversation**

Martina functions, but that's about it. She smiles when Annabelle is around, acts normal, but as soon as their daughter leaves the room it's as if her light is extinguished and she just…deflates. She barely speaks to Joey. They sleep in the same bed, but a whole peninsula could be separating them, and Joey wishes more than anything he could slide across the Berlin Wall of empty mattress that lies between them and touch her hair, wrap his arm around her, whisper something into her ear. Anything. Just to get conversation going between them again, instead of a barbed fence of silence. But he daren't. She needs to come to him. He needs to let her, even if that means waiting.

She goes to work and Joey worries, because every night when she comes home she seems a little weaker for it, a little more tired, another small piece of whatever's left of herself eroded away.

And again, he wants to say something, beseech her to stay at home at least until she's a bit better, but he doesn't.

He needs to let _her_ admit she's not coping. And she will. He can see it written all over her. She wants to. She just needs to let that last wall down, and she's getting a bit closer every day.

It takes her another week, but it happens.

Joey's just switched off his lamp for the night, settled down onto his side (he always sleeps facing her these days just to make sure, even subconsciously, that he's keeping an eye on her) but as soon as it's extinguished, hers comes back on.

'Joey.'

He looks over at her, sitting up in bed, her eyes cautiously on him and he knows. He pulls himself into a sitting position, reaches for her.

'You ready to talk, sweetheart?'

She nods but then goes silent. She wants to speak, Joey knows she does, but she can't find the words to begin.

'Did you find what you were looking for?'

'I did,' Martina says softly.

'And…how was he?' Joey hazards a guess. He's suspected why she went, what (no, whom) she was seeking. He'd had no idea, though, if she'd be able to find him. If it were even possible.

Apparently it was. And she has.

'He's dead.' Her voice is flat, emotionless.

'I don't know what to say, sweetheart.' Joey can't think of any condolences that would suffice, that would ever be enough. He'd suspected as much given the seventeen year age gap, given her brother's tendency to drink, but still. He thinks about Jack, fine now, how he would have felt had he not pulled through. He puts his hand on her arm, hoping the gesture will do, will show he cares.

'I was with him when he died.'

That Joey wasn't expecting. It takes him aback. He pictures Martina, little and lost, holding her brother's hand, watching him slip away to eternal rest or torment and he feels his heart break inside. He wants to cry for her. She's a strong person, is Martina, in terms of picking herself up after a setback, but at the same time she's not. She's good at dealing with aggressive people down the Jobcentre, at brushing off insults and death threats for simply doing her job until she can get home and wallow in private, she's great at being his support, his strength when he needs. But when something directly pierces her armour, hurts her directly rather than glancing off it, the difference is immense. She can't take it. And Joey can't take thinking of her not being able to take it, and he moves in, grabs her round the waist, holds her to him.

'No – no, I'm not…' she pushes against him, resistant to comfort, and Joey realises she's not finished. She needs to get it all out. He needs to let her.

'I mean, it's…' she's stuck for words. He waits.

'I can't…it hurts but…I don't know. It also helped. I spoke to him, Joey. I told him. About my life now…about you and Annabelle, about bloody Fat Edgar,' she laughs but it's weak, it's a coping mechanism rather than a genuine sound; he's seen it before, 'and I asked him why, and I think I forgave him, Joey. I feel…I have closure now.'

'You're at peace with it.'

Something strange comes over Joey at this realisation, and he looks at her now, so calm even though she's in pain, and he's thankful. So many days and nights over the past fifteen years he's prayed she'd be able to move past this, had accepted she likely never would, had accepted that she doesn't fully trust people because of those scars…and finally, _finally_ she might be able to move on from it. Only took her thirty years. She may be grieving, but it's long overdue. She hasn't let herself. To finally do so will help.

But at the same time he knows, and he suspects she might be about to tell him, that that isn't enough. Because he knows, has always known, that her brother being away from her is not the reason Martina suffers. It's her excuse for not doing anything about her suffering. It's the straw she clutches at when things get too hard and she chucks it in, pushes things back behind her mental walls and pulls herself together, pretending something hasn't got to her when clearly, agonisingly, it has. And now that excuse has been pulled out from under her she might have to recognise…

'I'm at peace with it,' Martina echoes, and he feels her sigh, give in to his attempts to hold her, rest her head on his shoulder.

'But that's not all, is it?'

Martina sighs again, slowly, heavily, and then she's sitting up properly again, her face in his direction, her eyes looking downwards at her hands in her lap.

'Ever since Roger left when I was young, there's been a great big hole inside of me. It's always been there, and I've always felt it there even when I was happy. But…I found him, and I thought finally that'd be filled. And yet...there's still a great big hole inside of me. Having closure on 'im didn't make it go away.'

Joey feels himself stop breathing. She is. She's finally realising. He's hoped for and feared this moment for years, but also fretted that it would never come. Now it has, though, and he knows he needs to be strong for her, needs to help her. Needs to help her get what she's finally realising she needs. But he knows she's not going to like it, is going to resist it.

He braces himself.

'You know why that is, Martina.'

She doesn't look at him.

'_Don't you_?' he pushes.

'I've always thought,' she says, 'that me life was a great black blanket of despair and hopelessness. And it was, but then…since you and the Boswells and Annabelle…it 'asn't been, it shouldn't be, and yet…'

'And yet you still feel deep down that it is.' He squeezes her shoulder. 'And you _know why_, don't you?'

She's silent.

'Don't you?'

More silence.

'Martina, when was the last time you felt really happy?'

'I do feel happy at times, Joey – '

'Yeah, I know, sunshine, it cycles on and off, I've read about that…'

'The world's expert on everything because he owns a computer.'

Joey ignores the dig.

'And you have good moods and all, but they're lukewarm, sweetheart, and they're dependent on summat fantastic happening to you. When was the last time you really felt…joyful? Like it was gonna burst out of you?'

She considers. 'When Belle was born.'

'Before that?'

'When we moved in 'ere.'

'And before that?'

'When you told me you loved me.'

'All major life changes, sweetheart. I have some days, Martina, when nothing particular is happenin', but I just walk outside and breathe in the air and feel glad to be alive. And it fills me up fit to burst. I've never seen that in you.'

He kisses her forehead to comfort her, because he can see this conversation is hard on her. It has to be had, though. He's held back for too many years, waiting for her to come out with this. Now she's started to, he's not going to let her retreat in on herself. He's going to open her up with his bare hands and drag every last hurt out of her. For her own good.

'What do you feel, most days? Not when things are going good, not when you're pissed off or stressed at work or something's upset you or we're rowing, just when things are ordinary? When you wake up. When you're walkin' down the road. When you're just goin' about life. What do you feel then, Martina? And tell the truth.'

She doesn't hesitate to answer, though her voice is quiet.

'Nothing. Empty.'

Joey pushes on. 'You don't go out anywhere unless I take you. You won't learn to drive, even when I've offered to give you one of me Jags to use. You don't make friends. You don't _see_ friends. You've been working the same job for thirty years and you've never been promoted. And you could've been. You've got the talent. You just don't try. You could have got a new job. You've got the talent. You just _don't try._ You haven't even got any hobbies! I've never met anyone so uninterested in anything.'

'God, you make me sound like I have no personality.'

Joey laughs in spite of himself. 'You have a _great _personality, Martina. You're clever, you keep me on me toes, you've got wit… it's one of the things I love about yer! But you've got no interests. It's not the same thing.'

'I cook. I sew.'

'Out of necessity, sweetheart, when it needs doing. Not passion. Not fun.'

'I crochet.'

'You don't make anything, though, just squares when you're stressed and then you throw them away…in all the years I've known you, you've never…you don't even like _music_, Martina.'

'I listen to music!' she protests.

'You _listen to it_, in the _background_, but you've got no preference. You never change the radio in the car. You never _choose it_. You don't even get bothered by that emo shite Belle's into.'

'It all sounds the same to me.'

'None of it brings out any emotion in you? Did you ever have a preference? Did you ever…have anything you were really interested in?'

'I don't remember.'

'I'm saying this, sweetheart, not because I want to get at yer.' Joey kisses the top of her head again. 'It's part of a bigger picture, that's all. I'm just tryin' to get you to _see_…'

'I'm not daft, Joey,' she cuts in, suddenly angry, 'I am aware, you know, that there's something wrong with me.'

'And you know what it is.'

She screws her eyes shut.

Joey slides out of bed, goes and retrieves his laptop.

Martina rolls her eyes at him, a little more herself but not quite.

'You and the bloody internet.'

'Not everything I look up is some dodgy scheme.'

'No, I realised that when a whole load of Italian leather shoes got delivered to our door round the time of the Boxing Day sales. You do realise buying things online is not actually any better value than going into a shop? Particularly when you get the sizing mixed up and get 'em two sizes too small for yer.'

'_Martina_,' he doesn't like using his stern voice on her but she's babbling, trying to change the subject. He gets back into bed, flicks over to the tab he's bookmarked, that he's had bookmarked for a long time, that he looks over and despairs about sometimes because he wishes she would just _see_.

She's not looking at him. He can feel her shaking beside him.

'It's okay, you know. It's nothin' to be ashamed of.'

'Joey, I can't look at that.'

'Then I'll take you through it. Or the relevant bits, anyway. Okay?' He's not going to take no for an answer. She's on the verge of breaking, and he feels terrible for putting her through this but it needs to happen. She needs to break, all the way, because she can't start to heal if she doesn't. Joey has watched Martina stubbornly suffer over the years, because she won't be told by anyone that life could be better, that she needs someone to help her. No more. She's coming around to the idea that it doesn't have to be this way, and he's going to get her all the way there, now she's started.

He wraps his arm around her, presses another reassuring kiss to her temple, rubs her back.

'Depressed or irritable mood most days.' He looks at her. 'Tick.'

'Joey – '

'Loss of interest or pleasure in most activities. We've just been through that one. Tick.'

'Please, Joey –'

'You know it, Martina, and I know it. Insomnia. Tick. I've been there all those nights you can't sleep. Significant weight change I'm not sure of, but, Martina…you're gonna be fifty-one in October. You haven't put on any weight since your thirties. There's something not right about that. I have,' he gestures down to the stomach he's embarrassed about.

'You eat too much cake,' Martina says weakly.

'Not the point, sweetheart. Not the point. And I'm not sayin' you don't look great, only…at our age, it's sort of expected, isn't it? I think it's related…question mark for that one, but anyway.'

He scrolls on, giving her shoulder another squeeze with his other arm.

'Feelings of worthlessness… I'll never forget that day you told me you were hopeless. God, to hear that…' he shakes his head, because it hurts even to reminisce about. 'Concentration you're okay with, but thoughts of death…you have those. Remember that time in the DHSS? _Stick my fingers in an electric socket?_ And you told me about when you lived with Shifty. When you considered jumpin' from the window. When you prayed for those thoughts to go away and you were afraid they might not...and you talk about death a lot, even now. Even if you don't realise it. There's more, but you only need five, sweetheart. And you've got five. P'raps even six.'

'All right.' Her voice cracks and it scares Joey. Martina crying always scares Joey, because it's so rare. She's incredibly skilled at keeping tears away; for them to get through means something has shaken her to her core. 'All _right_. Put it away, for God's sake! I know, Joey, that I'm a bit depressed…'

'Not a bit depressed,' Joey says gently. He strokes her hair, brushes it back from her face. 'You are very, _very_ depressed, Martina. And you have been for a very long time.'

He turns the screen around to her.

'Look at it.'

'I can't.'

'You already know.' He puts his hand under her chin, tilts her face towards his. 'Look at it.'

The whites of her eyes are red. He sees his reflection in her pupils, blurry from tears she's trying to hold in. And oh, how Joey hates doing this to her, but it's for her own good.

He scrolls to the top of the page, pointing, directing her gaze.

_DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria: Major Depressive Disorder._

'Major,' Joey says for emphasis. 'And I know I'm not a doctor, but well…it's obvious. I don't need to be one to see it.'

And then he shoves the laptop to one side, grabs her, uses both arms to cradle her to him, because she's sobbing uncontrollably now and what she needs now it's out there in the open is pure, instinctual physical comfort.

He's not sure how long Martina cries, or how long he holds her. It's getting late and he's getting tired, but this is more important. Far more important.

'There's nothin' to be afraid of, sweetheart,' he croons, stroking her hair, her back, 'nothin' to be ashamed of. You're just hurting, that's all. But you don't have to keep hurtin', you know. You don't.'

'How long have you known?' she asks at length.

'That you had depression?'

He feels her nod against his chest.

'From the beginning.'

She sits up rapidly, shocked out of her tears.

'What d'you mean, from the beginning?' she demands.

'Told you. We were in the DH– DSS – _why do they keep changin' it?_ Anyway. We weren't even goin' out yet. I was trying desperately to be your friend, and you were talkin' about how you thought you were hopeless. And I thought back to all the things you'd said over the years, about your bleak existence and black days, and it just sort of twigged. And the more time I spent with you, the more it just confirmed it to me.'

'Oh, yeah? And if you've supposedly known all this time, why did it not occur to you to _tell me_?'

'Oh, Martina,' Joey wants to laugh, even though a part of him is assaulting him with guilt because he wishes he had, 'because _you won't be told anything. By anyone. Ever.'_

He shakes her lightly. 'And you know it, sweetheart.'

'I'm not sure that's true.'

Joey sighs. 'You won't accept something until you've come to that conclusion yourself. I tried to warn you about our Shifty. You wouldn't listen. And I was right. I tried to tell you that you loved me, that we'd have a great marriage if we gave it a go, that havin' a baby would be a wonderful thing. And every time, you wouldn't listen. And every time, I was right.'

His voice gets a bit harder in spite of himself as he approaches the next one on his list, because he hates that she would rather get herself hurt than acknowledge it. 'Your parents tried to warn you your brother wasn't good for you. And you wouldn't listen. Threw them out of your life because you didn't want to listen. _And they were right.'_

'How d'you know they were right?' Martina asks defiantly.

He feels her shuddering; she's crying again. And she knows. He can tell she knows. She didn't before, because it would have affected her more, but she does now.

'I asked around, you know. When we were first together. Talked to some mates on a few jobs…' he knows normally a mention of his _jobs_ would prompt Martina's righteous anger, or some teasing about his shady dealings, but she's too overwhelmed at the moment. 'Tried to track him down for you. What I heard…it sickened me. I didn't think you'd want to know what he'd become. I thought it was better for you you didn't know.'

He expects rage for this admission, fury. Martina hates having the wool pulled over her eyes, especially by people she trusts. And he's kept this from her for sixteen years. But none comes.

'My mother told me the same,' she says instead.

'She's a bright woman, then. You should give her more of a chance.'

'I'm going to,' she says, surprising him. 'I've already seen her.'

'Glad to hear it.'

'Well,' Martina says, putting on a mimicry of his voice, 'she is _fam-i-ly_, after all. And maybe I've been a Boswell long enough to have it drummed into me, but…I regret what I've done to my family. I want them back. What's left, anyway.'

'And to think, I never thought I had any influence on you at all…'

'You have more influence on me than you realise, Mister Boswell.' He feels her shift closer, her wet lips against his cheek. He turns his head, pulling her into a proper kiss.

She pulls away.

'Joey – if you knew from the beginning, then why…' she's struggling with the words, 'you must've known I would be…it would be hard to…' she looks up at him, a strange emotion flickering over her face, tinged with the insecurity she'd had when they'd first been going out, when she'd fretted incessantly she'd wake up one day and he'd be gone. It's not an expression he misses. It's always meant she was starting inch back her trust from between his fingers, and he'd have to work doubly hard to keep it from slipping away again.

Reacting instinctively to it, he grabs her hand, presses a kiss to it.

Martina shudders out a sigh, finally gets to what's on her mind.

'If you knew…why'd you marry me?'

He sees the apprehension, the worry, can feel the subtext in the air; that she feels a burden to him.

'Sweetheart, no,' Joey tightens his grip on her, kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her hair, trying to reassure her with his touches as well as his words.

'Martina, I wish you'd get it into your daft little mind that I love yer. And there is so much more to you than bein' depressed…I've _always_ seen that!'

She relaxes a little. Joey feels the tension in her subside, presses another reassuring kiss to her temple.

'It's you and me, sweetheart. Always has been. You're my wife. My person, my…' he cringes saying it, 'soulmate.'

'I don't believe in all that rubbish,' Martina says stubbornly, and Joey laughs then, because even when she's in emotional turmoil that distinct Martina brand of stubbornness always will out.

'I know you don't,' he says, 'but I do. And it might sound strange, sweetheart, but when I came back to the DSS that day sixteen years ago, I recognised it. It smacked me in the gob that everything I wanted had been there all along. And I'd just been too blinded by my obsession with Roxy to see it.'

Her eyes are wide.

'That _day?!_'

'Well it wasn't that simple, sunshine. But…I'd lost the organic business, I'd finally been cured of Roxy and I'd lost Oscar, and I spent nearly two years of me life just…existing. I was so cut up I couldn't…I felt like I was just treadin' water trying to get through each day. Even though I had me fam-i-ly, I felt there was nothing for me. No future. I was just gonna waft around for the rest of my life.'

'I know that feeling. I've 'ad that feeling.'

'But then one day…I felt a bit stronger, I'd started going on jobs and I thought about goin' back to the DHSS. Life was good then, and I 'ad a purpose and I always felt challenged and I wondered…I don't know. Somethin' just spurred me to go back. Try claiming again. So I cut me hair, updated me wardrobe, brought meself back up to code. And I went in and there you were, and we were firin' shots at each other again like no time had gone by and I realised…'

Martina's eyebrow goes up in anticipation.

'That conversation made me feel a flicker of life in me chest again. To feel like…things could be good again. And that was all it took. That one conversation was all it took to make me realise all those times when I had a daft smile on me face, puttin' together elaborate schemes and crafting elaborate speeches to try and win more money from the Social Security…they were when I was at my happiest. And it wasn't just because I was providing for me family when they needed it, or thinkin' I was clever…a big part of it was…it was you.'

Martina quirks an eyebrow.

'It was seeing that look on your face when I came up with something daft and you _knew_ it wasn't right but I'd floored you because it fit through a loophole. It was seein' you fight it to the last, and then instead of just chuckin' in the towel, instead of waving a white flag, you'd say _I'm out to get you, Mister Boswell_ with that wicked smirk of yours…God, that was sexy. And I realised what made me so happy was what we had, even if I didn't know what that was…'

In spite of the fact that she's rolling her eyes, that particular sexy smirk finds its way onto Martina's face.

'I knew you were one of those daft romantics, Joey Boswell, but that is the soppiest load of – '

Joey kisses her before she can finish ridiculing him.

'Steady on, sweetheart, don't you want to hear the rest of me tale?'

'If it's as embellished as the last part, I'm not sure.'

She's doing what she always does when sentiment gets too much for her – teasing, turning on what Joey refers to as DHSS-lady mode, even though it's not the DHSS anymore, because she's wont to withdraw into territory which is easier for her when her emotions start to burn too strong.

'No, this is all true,' he insists and adds a tease of his own to relax her, 'and I am going to regale you with it anyway.'

'So when you saw me, and birds would suddenly appear,' she's smiling wickedly now despite her deadpan voice, and if nothing else he's distracted her from her current mood, 'every time I was near…'

'Look, it wasn't like that. I fought it, same as you did. Questioned it. I wasn't sure if it was all too quick, if I just needed someone because of everything that had happened to me, and…well, I could see you were strugglin' because of Shifty and I didn't want to hurt you even more. So I tried to just be your friend, be what you needed, but…I couldn't stop thinkin' about you. I'd spend whole days replaying conversations in me head…and I thought it looked like you were responding to me because I'd say something…oh, say, about the sad violin music you'd play for me, and you'd try and one-up me the next time with another cassette…'

'I remember,' Martina is smiling again, 'that was deliberate.'

'I knew it was. I saw you and it just…those feelings kept growin'. And I just didn't know what to do, Martina. I'd lie awake in bed and I'd pray about it. I'd say, _God, if You want me to pursue this woman, if it's the right thing, show me a sign so strong I can't ignore it.'_

Martina is quiet, plunged into thoughtfulness, any taunts she might had had planned dead on her tongue.

'And what was it?'

'Eh?'

'This supposed sign you had?'

'The day after I prayed that – the night after – that was the night you kissed me, and…well, you know the rest.'

Martina tut-sighs. 'I might've known.'

'No – no – that weren't the sign! I mean, don't get me wrong, it was great, that night…'

'You pushed the door saying _pull_ in the pub.'

'Of all of it, why d'you remember that bit?!'

A shrug.

'_Any-way_, as I said, it wasn't that – although, I do admit, my favourite part of that night was when you said _I'll have to confiscate all that leather, Mister Boswell. Come back to mine and I'll take it off you.'_

Her mouth drops open. 'I don't remember sayin' that!'

'Yeah, well. You were legless, weren't you? Well, not literally…I still remember how flexible they were when I…'

'_Stop it._ This conversation wasn't supposed to get pornographic. Get back to the point.'

'But _anyway_,' Joey says again, alight now with the memory, 'I was just gettin' to me sign, wasn't I? Afterwards, when I was sort of comin' back to me senses, and you were lyin' on me and I thought you were asleep… and there was a bit of light coming through your window from a streetlight outside and I looked down at your face…'

'How d'you remember this in so much detail?'

'Because, Martina,' he says, offering her a cheeky smile, 'you can't forget the moment that changed your life, can you?'

Martina tuts again. 'Are you gonna get to this revelation or aren't yer?'

'Okay, sunshine. Okay. Where was I?'

'You thought I was asleep and you could see me face because of the light outside.'

'Right. So. You weren't asleep – you were lookin' at me. And then you touched my face and you said, _be gentle with me, Mister Boswell. My heart's breakable, you know. _And I could see in your eyes that it was happening to you too. And I knew.'

She hums thoughtfully. 'I don't remember sayin' that and all.'

'Well, you dozed off after that and started snorin' in me ear.'

'I _did not!_'

Joey chuckles, gives her a kiss. 'I'm having you on, sweetheart. You didn't snore. You did say that, though. It was what got me through you messin' me around for weeks afterwards the way you did, not deciding about me, was that comment of yours.'

'All right, I believe yer. Was there this a point to this terrible Mills and Boon rip-off?'

'My point was, I love you, Martina. I've always loved yer. You're my person, sweetheart. And depressed or not, that never changes.'

She's quiet. Joey nudges her.

'But. I do want to help you. There's so much joy in the world, sweetheart, and you've been missin' it. But the right help could make all the difference.'

Martina looks at him again, fear and trust battling it out in her eyes.

'What am I gonna do?'

'Well.' Joey has thought this out, has had a rough plan in his mind for ages, just waiting to put it into action with Martina's consent. It's been a long time coming, but he didn't want to force her into accepting the truth before she was ready. That, he'd thought, could only do her more harm than good. But now she's come to terms with this, has acknowledged what both of them have known for so long, he feels he can start moving the pieces into place, taking steps to get her better.

'Number One. You take off work tomorrow and go to the doctor. Get a proper diagnosis and see what your options are. The right person to talk to could make all the difference for all we know. Or the right medicine.'

She's looking a bit worried at this last remark. Joey gives her shoulders a squeeze.

'You might not need to go that far. Just see what the doctor says, okay?'

'What will – ' she begins, but Joey cuts her off, knowing exactly where her mind has gone.

'No-one will think anything of you, sweetheart. There's no shame in it. You're not a fodder for the funny farm, you know. You're not harmful. You're just _hurting_. And we just wanna stop the pain, don't we?'

'I suppose.' She's still sceptical, but that's all right. It'll take a while. He knows it will.

'If it sets your mind at rest, no-one has to know who you don't want knowin'. I'm not gonna tell anyone. _Promise.'_

She sighs heavily, and the way she slumps against him signifies she's giving in.

'Please try, Martina,' Joey moves to close the deal, 'for your own sake. Let yourself be helped, sweetheart. You don't have to do anything drastic – just try.'

'All right,' she sounds defeated. 'You're wearin' me down. I'll try, but I can't guarantee it's gonna make a difference.'

'It might take time, sweetheart, it's just little steps one after the other – you don't need to expect an overnight miracle or anything. We've got to be realistic about this, Martina.'

'Yeah, all right, all right. I've already agreed to it.'

'Wonderful lady.' Joey rubs the back of her hand, giving her as much physical affirmation as he can. 'It's the right thing, sunshine, really it is. Now, Number Two. We're gonna find some things you enjoy doing. Try some new things. I'll take you places, help put a bit of brightness in your life... if you're not motivated, I'll be your motivation, until you start doin' nice things for yourself on your own.'

'That's sweet of you, love.' Martina seems genuinely made up with this, which is nice, but Joey knows this is just the calm before the storm. Because there's still Number Three to go on his list, and he knows she won't take kindly to it. He's going to have to lay down the law, and she's going to resist it.

'And Number Three – and this is the part you won't like, but I'm puttin' me foot down, here, Martina. You are going to write a letter of resignation, and you are gonna take it down the DWP and hand it in, and then you are going to say _stick it_, and hold your head up and walk out of there. How do you think that'd feel, eh, sunshine?'

'I'm not leavin' me job,' Martina insists.

'Oh, _yes you are_,' Joey says, his voice as commanding as he can make it, and she looks shocked and a little bit afraid, but he continues.

'Me foot's down, sweetheart. That's it. You are _not _doin' this to yourself any more. That job is one of the worst contributors to the situation you're in. Even if you think you can cope with handin' out stick all day, with pittin' wits against people, I can see what it does to you. You hate it when you try to help and get abused. You hate it when you see a deservin' case but can't do anything because the regulations are fixed just so, and you can't bend them, and you have to be cruel when you don't want to be. You hate it when someone immediately after claims for rubbish they don't need and they're just within the regulations and you have to give it 'em. You come home rattled because someone's hit you, or tried to, and another little piece of you inside starts to die. And I'm not lettin' you put yourself through it anymore. Okay?'

He turns her face up to his.

'Okay?'

She still doesn't answer.

'If you want to work, work. If you don't, don't. I can take care of you, no sweat, if you wanna stay at home and I'll support you if you wanna try for summat else. But either way, _no more DHSS_, no matter what they call it. _No more_, Martina. It's killin' you slowly. I'm not gonna let it. It stops here.'

'But– '

'No buts,' he doesn't normally have to be this stern except with Billy, but it's warranted. 'You know I don't usually order you around, Martina, but this is for your own good. You're leavin' that job. _End of.'_

Martina shrinks back from him a little. He's never spoken to her like this before. She's seen him apply his _masterful man of the house_ voice and demeanour to his siblings, to their daughter, but where she's concerned usually it's him listening to a stern lecture from _her_. But Joey is dead serious, and he is going to impress upon her how seriously he takes her wellbeing. It's high time he steps up, is a man, does for his wife what he should have done a long time ago.

'Just think,' he says softly, bringing her in closer again, 'how much better you'll feel, knowing you don't have to dread goin' into work anymore. When you stayed off for a while when Belle was little, I saw the change in you. You were laughin' and smiling…it did wonders, bein' away from that place. It will again.'

It had always disappointed him she'd insisted on going back, hadn't even considered going for something new given she had the perfect opportunity.

'It's been my identity for so long. What will I be if it's not in me life?'

'Martina. You'll be Martina. There is so much more to you, sweetheart, than bein' a DHSS lady. It's only you who doesn't see it.'

'But...what will I do?'

'Anything you like!' Joey nudges her. 'Everything! Think of all the adventures we can have, sweetheart.'

Martina snorts half-heartedly.

'We could do anything, you and me. We'll go on holiday– go anywhere – Greece, Rome, you name it.'

'And live on what?'

'You're just makin' excuses now, sweetheart. I told yer, didn't I, I make enough to take care of us.'

'And all of it dodgy. And if the tax man gets his nose into it again or you get arrested, what then?'

This argument never gets them anywhere, so Joey stops it before it can start going into its usual circle.

'Look, we'll focus on gettin' you better, and then we can discuss what you're gonna do with your life. Okay? But it's not gonna happen as long as you're workin' down the DHSS. Something's got to give in that situation, sweetheart, and I'd rather it not be your wellbeing, all right? God knows it's damaged enough as it is from all those years caged in a box bein' abused.'

Martina is quiet for a while.

'It's not the DHSS,' she says finally.

It's not an admission he's right, not a concession, but she's given up arguing with him and that's perhaps the best she can do.

'Never mind that now. Rest now, sweetheart. It's gettin' late. We'll talk more tomorrow, okay?'

Joey holds her until she falls asleep against him, worn out from the draining conversation they've just had. He'd dearly like to just rest his head against hers and join her in slumber, but there's something he needs to do to ensure she doesn't back out of this.

He gently slides her off him, gets out of bed, tiptoes out the room and downstairs. Martina's work laptop sits under a pile of rubbish, subconsciously hidden because she hates it, can't properly use it.

He pulls it out, opens her email, cracks his knuckles when the box pops up asking for her password.

_Joey57._

He's denied. Hmm. She must have changed it recently.

Joey considers_. _Martina is so predictable. It was _Roger42_ last time. Name of someone she loves, last two digits of their birth year.

He tries _Annabelle97._

Denied again. Maybe she's changed her method of madness. He scratches his head, tries another one. She sometimes uses pets. _Boswell12_ had been one, because apparently in her Shifty days she'd had twelve goldfish in a row, and all of them had been called the same thing. (And she tells _him_ off for naming all his dogs…hang on, he's got it).

_Edgar4._ Nope. One last try. She never calls Edgar _Edgar, _she calls him…

_Fat Edgar._

And he's in. He really should teach her how to pick a better password but he likes hacking her emails too much. Usually to see what she's bitching about him to her colleagues ('_arrogant' my arse_, he thinks, remembering) or to find out what she's planning to get him for his birthday (she's got a lovely watch on order that he's thrilled about), but today he's got more of an important mission.

He scrolls through her contacts til he finds Rachael's email address.

_God, _he remembers when Rachael worked alongside her. Annoying cow, no good at the job at all, in spite of having been there significantly longer than Martina. Now she's in charge of the department, and the obnoxious dollybirds Martina trained in the first place are now above her as well. Martina hasn't been advancing and everyone around her has. Just shows; she needs to get out of there. She doesn't thrive there.

First things first, though, she needs tomorrow off. He tries to get himself into Martina's mindframe, write in Martina's voice, and crafts an excuse for her to throw a sicky tomorrow. He'd just write out a _stick it_ right here and now, only Martina needs to do that herself.

God, he hopes she _can_.

He needs to get her out of there, if she's going to have any hope of kicking this depression. And after that, he knows, things are only going to get harder.

* * *

**Yeah Joey might have been a bit harsh there, but it's coming from a place of concern. Not only that, he's not infallible and Martina's situation is hard on him too, especially when he thinks he can't do anything about it. **


	6. The shackles of civil service

**Hope everyone is doing well. This chapter took a while as there was a scene in it that I kept wanting to change but I'm more or less okay with it now. Bit of a change towards the end of this one, but I wanted to give them a (sort of) nice moment before things get hard again. **

**As usual, I don't own Bread, original Joey in mind and so on. And as usual, this is based on personal experience supplemented with research and is not meant to make any point about what anyone should do in any situation. Nor are Martina's opinions meant to reflect any view on any particular option; she's just a) trying to make sense of things and b) stubborn. Same goes for Joey, who is just trying to help in the only way as he knows how. This is just a story. **

* * *

**V**

**The shackles of civil service**

'No work today, sweetheart,' Joey chirps when Martina wakes at six. He slams his hand on her clock, looks over at his wife, who has started to sit up, and pushes her back down against the pillows.

'Go back to sleep.'

'I realise I agreed to stayin' off today,' Martina grumbles, 'but I still have to let them _know_…'

'All taken care of.' Joey grins, teeth flashing even more when realisation dawns on Martina's face.

'_Have you been hacking my emails again?!_'

'It's not hackin' when your passwords are so _predictable_, sunshine.'

More grumbling.

'Come on. You need your rest, if you're gonna do summat life-changing later today.'

'Annabelle…'

'Harris and Dave are swingin' by to pick her up. They'll see she gets to school safe, no sweat.'

Martina doesn't particularly trust Adrian's teenage sons in a car, given they've only just passed their tests – and she _especially_ doesn't want Adrian's teenage sons around her teenage daughter when the three of them get up to, in her words, _more trouble than the original Boswell set_. But Joey was in a bit of a _beggars-can't-be-choosers _position last night, given he was asking around at two in the morning and anyway, Belle will enjoy a ride with her favourite cousins. Martina will just have to deal with it.

She's tensing, looking about to spring up again. Joey's arm shoots out, pinning her.

'Back to sleep.'

'Don't you think you'll get away with doin' this to me all the time, Mister Boswell,' Martina says crossly, but she settles again, huffing.

'C'mere,' Joey encircles her with his arms, pulls her against his chest, kisses her forehead. 'You're doin' all right, dear little soon-to-be-ex-DHSS lady. You'll soon learn who's boss.'

He hesitates, concerned the tease might be too much for her, but when she snorts and nestles closer he knows it's all right.

'Yeah, you wish.'

He chuckles, kisses her again.

'Joey?' Martina asks sleepily.

'Mm?'

'Is my ring a Ceylon sapphire?'

Joey blinks. He's managed to keep that from her for a decade and a half. Mainly because she has no idea what the value of anything is, so it hasn't exactly been hard. He doubts even now she understands what she's talking about. It's also not something he was expecting her to say out of the blue.

'How'd you find that out?'

'Roger told me. You lying bastard, you said it wasn't expensive.' And then she's asleep again so he can't ask her anything more. Joey blinks, shakes his head and settles down as well.

* * *

Joey drives her to the doctor, sits with her in the waiting room, holds her hand up until the moment she has to go in, but it doesn't help. She has a sinking feeling of dread which amplifies when her name is called, and intensifies the entire visit until it erupts and buries her in hopelessness again.

'You were right,' she says to Joey when she comes out, defeated, disappointed against all hope. 'He said more or less the same thing you did. Only he actually knew what 'e was talkin' about.'

'Hey, it's okay, sweetheart,' Joey's arms are around her in an instant. 'It's not the end of the world.'

He doesn't even tease her about admitting he's right, or rebut her attempt to tease him; that's how serious this is. Oh, God. Martina grits her teeth, because if she doesn't she might cry.

'What does it bloody make me, Joey?'

'It makes you no different!' He laughs at this. 'You're the same person you were five minutes ago, sweetheart. You've just got a name for what you're feelin', that's all. Did he say what you can do?'

'Gave me this.' Martina pulls the scrap of paper out of her pocket, her hand trembling as she holds it up to him. Its very existence unnerves her. She hasn't known whether to make use of it or not yet.

Joey takes it, brow furrowing.

'It's a prescription.'

'I can see that.' He hands it back, his eyes creasing in a way that always manages to twist up her heart, even when she's angry with him or, in this case, feeling still quite far away from him. He's been spectacularly supportive ever since she came home, and yet there's still a part of her that wants to push him away, even as the rest of her wants to cling to him.

'Is that what you want?'

Martina shakes her head. 'Gave me this as well.' She pushes her referral at him.

'Okay, then,' Joey says, looking from the prescription to the psychologist referral. 'You've got two options for starters. We've got something to work from.'

How can Joey sound so bloody hopeful? She honestly can't decide which of the two is worse. Take medicine that'll do God knows what to her, or spend the foreseeable future having difficult emotional conversations with some condescending bastard with letters after his name. Neither path sounds appealing. And Martina feels another bubble of dread well up and burst, drenching her in misery. Why does the cure have to be worse than the ailment? (And it's not even a bloody cure, the doctor said. Just a way to help her cope.) The appeal of just crawling into bed and never facing anything again increases by the minute.

* * *

She's silent all the way home and then sits in silence there as well, holding a brew Joey made her but not really interested in drinking it.

'Gone cold, that has,' Joey comes and sits beside her. 'You okay?'

'Oh yeah, just _marvellous_,' she says flatly.

'It'll be all right, you know.'

She turns to look at him. 'Will it? I don't know about that, Joey. All I can see ahead is another deep dark ocean to wade through. Someone's just added more stones to drag me down.'

'Aw 'ey, don't be like that! They could help, you know. You just need to try, that's all.'

'I know it's daft,' she says quietly, 'I was hoping just knowing would be enough to get rid of it.'

She feels Joey's hand against her back.

'And I thought you didn't approve of wishful thinking.'

He's got here there. Most of the time she doesn't. Then again, wishful thinking, in the context of her conversations with Joey, usually involves his inane optimism that he'll be able to claim for ailments he doesn't have, but might have _one day_. It's reminding him he can't just wish Oscar Hartwell to be a completely different person. It's not meant to apply to her.

Martina sighs but doesn't reply.

'You might have to just accept, sunshine, that it's gonna have to involve _doin' something_.'

'Don't keep bangin' on about it,' Martina grumbles, her tone darkening further. 'It would be nice just to have a few moments where I don't have to remember that's comin'.'

'Don't be like that,' Joey wraps his arm around her, squeezes gently.

'Be like what? Am I not entitled to a few minutes in denial?'

'_No_,' Joey's voice is stern again, and she wants to rip through his throat. His decision to suddenly start laying down ground rules is not something she's pleased about. He doesn't understand; it's not him that's had their guts ripped out, mangled and stuffed back in with pieces missing. It's not him who then has to then submit to torture just to try and repair them.

' I know you, sweetheart. You're just hopin' you can let it slip away again so you can go on pretendin' you're all right when you're not. You've done it so many times, sweetheart. You can't keep doin' this to yourself. I won't let yer. Not this time. Like it or not, _you need to do summat about it.'_

Martina bristles, shifts away from him.

'There's summat else you might need to do as well.'

'Oh, God, what now?'

'You'll need to tell Annabelle,' Joey says gently but firmly, his hand on her shoulder. 'She's been worried about yer.'

That one's like a bullet through her chest. She leans back a little.

'And I thought the two of you would have got round to discussin' that one at some point,' Martina mutters, trying to keep her cool, 'the way you sit round _conspiring_ about your bloody schemes.'

'_Martina_,' Joey warns. 'This is important. And it needs to come from you.'

He can sense the panic in her, swelling until she thinks it might burst forth. He pulls her towards him again, an attempt at reassuring her, although he's only succeeded in stifling her.

'It's better if she understands, sweetheart. Don't you think? Don't wanna keep her in the dark, do we?'

Martina thinks back to her own anger at her parents for keeping crucial information from her, even in the name of keeping her safe. It all suddenly makes a lot more sense. The prospect of delivering horrible, life-changing information to her daughter, that might affect her Heaven-knows how, is not a pleasant one.

But she doesn't want to keep anything from Belle. She can't. She knows – God, she knows only too well – what it feels like to discover something enormous, to find out it was hidden from you for years. She can't do that.

Joey's a bloody bastard, but he's right.

* * *

To her astonishment, Annabelle doesn't even show a flicker of surprise when Martina tells her.

'Oh, Mam, _everyone_ knew that.'

Martina struggles to breathe.

'What d'you mean, _everyone knew that?'_ she demands.

'Me and Davey worked it out.'

'Oh, you did, did yer?'

Her daughter and nephew hardly constitute _everyone_. Still, the fact that two self-absorbed, ignorant teenagers worked it out isn't something Martina's particularly pleased about. Who else knows, or at least suspects? Oswald probably, she reflects, flicking through the mental rolodex of people she knows. She doesn't mind that one. Leonora's probably clever enough to have noticed something. Joey obviously figured it out years ago. She wonders absently if Shifty ever realised, if he ever considered it.

'Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Sometimes it's as if…' Belle frowns as she thinks of the right words, 'your lights go out.'

Martina feels a chill. She's always done her best to hide her feelings of emptiness from Annabelle. She glances over at her daughter, terrified.

'What d'you mean?' she demands again.

'Oh, you know,' Belle gives a sloppy shrug. 'When you can't even be bothered to have a go at me for summat I did, I know all's not well.'

'Oh, God, Annabelle…' Martina reaches for her.

'Eh, geroff! I'm only _sayin'_, that's all. No need to have a fit.' Annabelle reaches out, takes both Martina's hands in hers, and Martina thinks wryly that in a strange twist her daughter has suddenly slipped on the parent role like a glove, comforting her. And then she thinks back to all the times Joey has stepped up to comfort Nellie when things go wrong. Annabelle Boswell is every inch her father's daughter – in just about every way imaginable, it would seem.

'And 'ey, when Dad said to me you weren't well and then you sodded off for a few days…well I'm not _that_ daft, you know. I can work things out. Me and Davey talked it over, and, well...we're clever, you see. We can put two and two together.'

'Oh, you can, can you?' Martina shakes her head fondly.

'Yeah. So go on. Tell me all about what's wrong.'

Martina blinks at her, dazed. Little Joey that she is, Annabelle has her hand on her shoulder now, is looking expectantly up at her, waiting for something she can appease Martina about. It'd almost make her laugh, only she doesn't much feel like laughing at the moment. And so instead of trying, she starts to talk.

They sit together for a long time. Martina has doubts about how much she should share with her thirteen-year-old daughter about what she's going through, her desire not to keep Belle in the dark conflicting with her desire to keep her safe emotionally, but Belle asks questions and she answers as best she can, and this seems to be going all right, Martina thinks. Hopes, anyway. The only thing she can't answer is _what are you gonna do?_ Because she hasn't worked that out herself. Both medication and therapy scare her in equal measures.

They go quiet and sit for a while longer, Annabelle leaning against Martina in a way that reassures her a little. A part of her has always been afraid what's inside her could severely damage her daughter. It was one of her reservations about having children – but Annabelle seems to be taking this in her stride. And Martina wants to stroke her hair, reassure her and praise her for being brave about this whole thing, but what she actually says surprises even her.

'I'm leavin' my job,' it bursts out of her. She hadn't even made up her mind yet, had been tossing up fighting Joey over it, but somehow sitting here with Annabelle, having just opened the depths of her mind to her daughter like never before, the decision she didn't even know she'd made has escaped her brain through her mouth.

'_Thank God.'_

Martina gives Belle a strange look. She's got a cheeky smile playing around her gob that Martina is all too familiar with.

'You know what this means, don't yer?'

'I'm gettin' a feeling of dread, Annabelle Boswell,' Martina says, 'anticipatin' your next sentence. And I'm warning yer, if you are about to say something which makes me feeling of dread justified, you're in trouble.'

'You can come round the other side and claim now!'

'Oh, God.' Not as bad as she was anticipating, but still. 'That's never gonna happen, Belle.'

'We could be even richer than we are now!'

Martina rolls her eyes. 'Remind me to explain how Jobseeker's works to you sometime. It is not a rich cheat's scam for money, it is meant to tide poverty-stricken people over while they _look for work_…'

'That's the definition on paper, anyway.'

Martina shakes her head. There's no point trying to explain anything to Belle, because a) she's a Boswell, and they're a law unto themselves, and b) it may be her age, but Annabelle has become insufferably insistent of late that she knows everything.

Martina sighs instead of bothering and leans against her again, trying to offer as much affection as she can through touch, afraid words won't cut it.

'Mother?'

Martina doesn't look up. 'Devil child?'

'I love you.'

Belle says this a lot, usually when she wants something, but in this context it's heartfelt and comforting, and Martina gives up pretending she's calm and aloof and wraps her arms around her daughter, squeezing her so tightly Belle would usually complain. Except she doesn't. She reciprocates, and Martina feels that familiar surge of shatteringly intense love for her.

'Go on,' she says, when emotion threatens to overwhelm her. She releases Belle from the embrace, pushes her back gently. 'You've got things to do.'

'What things?'

'I thought I told you to get that English essay done. You're not leavin' it to the last minute.'

'Yeah, but with life changing news like that? _Surely_ there's an exemption somewhere for compassionate leave.'

Martina rolls her eyes.

'You know, I liked you better before you could speak.'

'My speech, Mam, exudes sheer elegance. You couldn't be without my wit if you tried.'

God, she's obnoxious.

But Martina can't help but be thankful for that. She might dress like depression personified, as do most of her cohort, but inside, Belle's got that Boswell sunshine, that facetiously cheerful little colour chart way of viewing life that Freddie passed to Joey and Joey, even in his darkest moments, held onto and passed on in turn. Annabelle is happy in her insolence, in her wannabe-witty quips and devious little brain, and in getting up to far too much trouble, but she _is_ happy. The gene that haunts Martina, that haunts her Mam as well now she really thinks about it, seems to have bypassed her.

And if nothing else, if Martina is doomed to feel this way forever, at least her daughter, from what it seems thus far, isn't. And that's something, at least for now, that can get her through the day.

* * *

Joey's starting up the engine to drive Martina to her last day at work when Oscar rings.

'Thanks a lot, Joey. Thanks a bloody lot.'

Joey cringes. 'Am I supposed to know what I've done?'

'What you _haven't_, Joey. I'm in trouble because of you – that fine needs paying soon, you know, and I thought…I just thought the man who claims he's _still my father_ might have shown _some_ compassion for me…'

'Hang on, there, sunshine,' Joey cuts in, reeling from the shock. 'Fine?! You said it was just a bit owing last time we spoke.'

Oscar goes silent.

Oh, God. Joey's hands shake. This changes everything, but in what way he can't determine. He couldn't picture Oscar, little Oscar who used to come to him at Christmas bouncing up and down in innocent excitement, doing something that would warrant being fined. It sickens him, and yet he thinks back to all the times he's helped Shifty out when his cousin was in need of bail, when he's forked over his hard-earned cash to get Billy or Adrian out of a spot of bother from doing something daft. Why didn't he do the same for his son?

Something in his instincts compels him to hold back. He's not sure why. There's a sinister warning bouncing round his brain that this isn't the same. That he needs to be careful. It clashes with his paternal instincts, the Eldest Boswell instincts that want to hop to it to keep a loved one out of trouble no matter what the cause – or the cost.

Joey fights to stay calm.

'And where's Roxy in all this? Didn't she offer to help yer?'

'Oh, blame Mam, why don't you?'

'I'm not _blaming _her!' Joey is exasperated already, and they've been speaking for less than two minutes. 'I'm just _sayin'_ – and it's a logical thing to think, you must admit – that you don't have _no-one but me_ to bail yer out…did you think to ask Roxy, or Jeff…'

Jeff is Roxy's latest fancy man. She's been through at least three since Joey's been in contact with Oscar. No change there, then.

'I don't know why I bothered phoning, Joey – every time I need something from you, you just act as if I don't matter, as if because I've been away I'm _persona non grata _in your life…'

That hits where it hurts, and Joey desperately wants to retaliate. They could argue in circles for hours, he knows, but Martina is coming towards the car now.

'Not now, son,' Joey says, trying to suppress the nausea that comes with saying no to someone he loves. He hangs up, feeling heavy. 'Not now.'

It still sends shivers of guilt down his spine that he's doing this. That the son he tried so hard – for _years – _to bring back into his life is someone he has to keep at arms' length for his own good. But he has to.

Joey thinks back to last night, to Martina and Belle curled round each other on the sofa, in the throes of a moment that reminds him of his own childhood in Kelsall Street. He thinks back to Martina this morning, her sudden resolution, _I'm gonna do it today_, no doubt because she's trying to put off deciding on a treatment and thinks leaving her job is easier, but he'd felt a surge of pride nonetheless, because she's finally going to do something to make herself happy. He's got a family to look after. He can't let himself carve out space in his mind right now for someone who doesn't want to be part of it.

'What's the matter with you?' Martina asks as she gets in the passenger seat beside him.

'Nothing,' Joey says, slipping his mobile into his pocket and starting the engine. 'Nothing at all.'

* * *

'You can't just disappear for days at a time, then waltz in 'ere, throw your resignation onto me desk and then walk off. You do realise, Martina, that there are procedures. Giving appropriate notice, for a start.'

Martina looks at her supervisor and something strange comes over her. A wave of anger, resentment, hidden for so long, desperate to be unleashed.

'I've been with this department thirty years,' she says quietly, through her teeth, 'I've given me _blood_ for it. And you've always overlooked me for promotions, and you've ignored me every time I complained about bein' verbally – and sometimes _physically – _abused. I have suffered here for _thirty years_. I'm not waitin' any longer. Dock me pay for all I care.'

She's never spoken to Rachael like this. They were friends once, colleagues. It was Rachael who showed her the ropes in this job, who sat at the counter beside her for ten years before moving up, whom she used to occasionally confide in. Who used to encourage her. Whom she used to respect.

She can't bring herself to anymore. Martina has lost that respect over the years. Every time she was turned away after trying to report something significant weighs on her impression of her old colleague, driving a wedge between them. They still interact and Martina shows an obligatory deference (unless something has especially got on her nerves) but it's not the same, and never can be.

'You know,' Rachael says, peering at her, 'I've known you for thirty years and I've never seen such an enormous waste of talent. You could have been in charge of the entire department by now. You could've 'ad my job, if you'd applied yourself – you have a way with dealing with people most of us can only dream of. You know how to handle people, to be firm when you have to, no matter what they throw at yer. You could have surpassed me years ago. But you chose not to try. You got yourself stuck behind the counters because you spent more time groaning about your lot and being fixated on the Boswell family than you did trying to advance your career.'

It occurs to her Joey said something similar. That she doesn't _try_.

It plunges into her chest.

She can feel herself sinking again, just from that comment alone and then, just as she starts to reach the point where she can actually _see_ the pain, when it changes the colours around her, the anger comes back, and with it a strange surge of energy. Because she can't do much about her lot in life, but she can do something about this. And that's what she came here to do.

Martina gets up out of her chair. 'That's it. I'm off.'

'You can't do that! I haven't even read this letter, let alone given it due consideration. As I said, the appropriate amount of notice – '

'I'd like to tell you,' Martina says, feeling her face smile even though there's no real emotion connected to it, just malice, 'where you can shove yer notice.'

'Walkin' out like this with no warning – I won't give you a reference.'

'Sod your reference. I don't need it.' She's never spoken to her superiors this way before, and it shocks Rachael, she can tell. She's always toed the line.

Martina gets up from her chair, looks her in the eye, stares her down across her desk, just as many of her ratbag claimants have done to her over the years.

'Martina, we can discuss this.'

'No we can't. I'm finished 'ere.' She smiles in spite of herself. She'd told Joey she wasn't going to do this bit, but she can't resist the temptation and right now, it's the pick-me-up she needs.

'_Stick it.'_

God, that felt good. She's shaking as she walks out of there but _God,_ that felt good.

* * *

Joey waits for Martina outside the Jobcentre, leaning against his old MKII Jag, which he's coaxed out of its slumber for the occasion. It may or may not last the trip home, but Joey doesn't much care; if they get stuck, he's tempted to just pull her into the back. She may have been apprehensive about this, but in Joey's mind this is a cause for celebration. Martina deserves so much more than this job. True, Joey met her in the old DHSS, had some of his best verbal battles and flirtatious skirmishes there over that old counter. True, he loves the DHSS-lady sarky attitude and voice and _Mister Boswell-_ing that all originated there. But the rest of it – Martina feeling caged into a bleak existence, never advancing, being abused day after day – he's relieved she's finally getting shot of that. He's going to get shot of the system himself once she's out of there for good. It's not the same as it was in the '80s. He doesn't need to claim benefits anymore, only really kept doing it to keep an eye on Martina and make sure she came to no harm. He knows she breaks rules for him and changes his file to keep them all from ending up in prison, and it occurs to him he never thought about what it did to her, going against her principles like that. He's glad she won't have to anymore.

Here she is, coming out as normal – but for the last time, Joey thinks gleefully. She's out. And he knows, realistically, that it'll take a damn sight more than just getting her to quit her job to get her better, but it's a step in the right direction, and he couldn't be more thrilled.

Joey grabs her as she gets close, hoisting her up by the waist, spinning her around in the air and pulling her down for the most passionate kiss he can muster.

'Bit over-the-top,' Martina grumbles when he lets go of her.

'This is a red-letter day, sweetheart! We're celebratin' your freedom from the shackles of civil service, and under the circumstances I think the theatrics are warranted.'

'No they're not,' she rolls her eyes, but there's a hint of a real smile on her face for the first time since all this started and the sight is lovely, so wonderful, that Joey grabs her and kisses her again.

'Your chariot, madam,' he gestures to his Jaguar.

'You can stop with the dramatics now, Mister Boswell,' Martina is smirking in spite of herself, though.

'It's not Mister Boswell anymore, is it?' Joey grins. 'And the dramatics are only just beginning, sweetheart. They're only just beginning.'

* * *

Joey had wanted to take her out somewhere to celebrate, but all Martina really wants to do is go home. It's not celebration-worthy, not in her mind. She's just excised a consistent routine from her life; more than anything right now she wants some normality, some stability to remind her that her life hasn't completely come unmoored.

Oddly though, she does feel…not happy, but…lighter. It's just one of the many weights, but it's gone and she can feel its absence. And the small absence is like opening a window just a chink, letting a little bit of light in. She still feels unsteady on her feet, but there's a strange half-smile on her face as she stands in the kitchen chopping vegetables.

Joey comes into the kitchen, tries to help her get dinner ready. He's more in the way than anything, and it's a hassle trying to keep the pan with the meat in it away from him but Martina's grateful for his obnoxious chatter and teasing. It helps to keep focussed, in the present. The present is strangely airy, a freedom she hadn't even known she wanted uplifting her more than anything has in a while. The past is painful. The future is an ominous blank, two frightening forks in the path she doesn't want to consider looming.

And so she squeezes Joey's hand, stifles a laugh when his 'help' extends to trying to move his portion of dinner as far away from touching the meat as possible, and tries to hold onto that small shred of light and forget what was before it, and what might come after.

* * *

Dinner is a cheerier affair than it has been in weeks. What with Martina's disappearance and Jack's issues before it, they haven't had a peaceful meal in a long time. Joey's aware Martina's lukewarm happiness is just a temporary reaction to something good finally happening to her (he's seen this so many times before), that she won't be able to keep it up for long, but it's been so long since she's been anything other than down in the dumps, and so Joey counts his blessings even for this small miracle.

It fills Joey's heart up – so much so that he can forget Oscar for a while.

Except for the fact that Belle is doing her utmost to disrupt the lovely moment, making soft lowing noises every time she bites into a piece of beef, (until Martina glares at her and warns her to _stop tormenting yer dad, you know he's a hypocrite_) and then deciding to give a lecture on why no-one should ever even _consider_ dull menial jobs, given they destroy the mind, and Joey is tempted to tell her to cut it, lest she dampen Martina's tenuous good mood.

Martina is miles ahead of him, though.

'Oh, yeah? And seein' as you've still got an education to get through before you even _think_ about career choices, what makes you qualified to speak on this subject?'

'I've _told yer_,' Annabelle sighs dramatically. 'I don't _need_ an education. I've got plans.'

Her insouciance makes Joey chuckle in spite of himself.

'What do you wanna do, then, Belle?'

Annabelle shrugs. 'Sell shit.'

'You _what.'_ Martina's tone is dangerous.

Belle, unfazed, rolls her eyes. 'Sell _stuff.'_

Joey grins. 'What kind of stuff, Princess? You'll end up like Uncle Jack, flogging rubbish and gettin' crates of vegetables delivered to your house.'

She shrugs again. 'Ah, just the usual shite.'

Martina looks as if she's about to breathe fire. 'I'm _warning you, _Annabelle. I'll shove a bar of soap in your gob in a minute!'

Martina threatens to wash Belle's mouth out at least once a week. She's never actually followed through with this threat though, so Belle doesn't take much notice.

'_Anyway,'_ Annabelle says, as if she were rudely interrupted rather than told off for swearing, and Martina puts her head in her hands, _'sell…things…maybe_ summat to do with music…y'know, supported by the selling. And when I'll sell me shares I can live on that too.'

Martina's head emerges slowly from her hands.

'Your _shares?!_'

'Mhmm. I'm waitin' for the right moment to cash 'em in. When they're worth a bit more.' She makes a face at a letter in her hand that neither of them had noticed til now, and scoffs. 'This lot's down twenty pence a share. They'd better go up. Haven't heard about Barclays yet.'

Martina blinks. 'How many shares have you got?!'

'Not many,' Belle says evasively.

'You're _thirteen!_'

'For all intents and purposes, I'm twenty-eight. Well. You've got to have something to fall back on, don't you?'

Joey's eyes meet Martina's for a moment. There was an actual hint of dream in that spiel of Annabelle's, hidden by half-hearted rubbish about selling and shares, that surprises Joey. He wonders how much more of a dream his daughter has in her head that she's not ready to share yet. She's like him in that respect. Keeps herself to herself, for the most part.

_Music?_ He mouths at Martina, who looks back at him, shrugs, then examines Annabelle with a degree of interest that matches his own. She's picked up on it too, obviously, and he can see she's debating asking a question, sees her think better of it.

'Just promise me something, love,' she says instead.

'Depends on what it is, but.' Annabelle never agrees to something easily.

'One,' Martina says, 'no _crime_.'

'Gotcha.' Belle salutes cheekily.

'That includes _shares _you are _lying about your age_ to obtain.'

'Of course it does,' Annabelle says, sounding as if she's going to immediately ignore this comment as soon as the subject is changed.

'It's _fraud,_ Annabelle!'

'I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.'

'You will cross it now, because I'm taking them off you.' Martina reaches over the table, yanks the letter out of Annabelle's hands.

'_Oh no_,' says Annabelle, with a face Joey knows too well, because he's made it himself many times down the DHSS with Martina, 'that was my _only copy_ too. _Oh well._'

Joey would laugh, but he's supposed to be a united front with Martina where Annabelle being devious is concerned. And Martina is glowering.

'Okay,' he says, touching her arm, 'we'll leave the fraudulent shares aside for the time being. We _will deal with it later, though, Belle, okay?_ Okay. What was number two?'

'Two,' Martina says, relenting and pretending not to notice when Belle snatches her letter back, 'don't ever go into civil service. It's more trouble than it's worth.'

'Never fear, Mam, I don't plan on turnin' into either of _you_.'

'Annabelle!' Martina chides, but Joey can see the laugh she's trying to keep a lid on, and he's glad of it.

* * *

The evening wears on, and after Annabelle disappears to her room to play hideous music until the wee hours, Joey and Martina sit together on the sofa for a while, just watching the fire flickering in the grate, talking everything over. Martina's clearly trying to do what Joey doesn't want her to; forget everything temporarily, push down her fears, but he can't begrudge her that just now. After all, she's clung to that horrible job for years, afraid to leave the abuse behind, and to have braved her fear of the unknown is such an enormous step she deserves a bit of a rest and a chance to process before forging ahead.

'Got any old work shirts?' Joey teases. 'I was just thinkin', we've got a nice little bonfire going, but it could be bigger.'

Martina smiles, and though it's not one of her best, is a little watered down, it's still nice.

'I forgot you used to do that.'

'Loving gesture, wasn't it?'

'Destroyin' all me clothes?'

'I bought you new ones, didn't I?'

'Don't pretend _that_ was a loving gesture. I know full well it was just part of your quest to turn me into a Boswell.'

'Worked though, didn't it?' Joey grins at her, runs his hands over her. 'Let's see, silk shirt, wool blazer, real suede skirt, leather shoes…if I could just get you to go to an 'airdresser instead of using that box dye, your transformation would be complete.'

Martina elbows him.

'Only because I know if I bring home imitation anything, it'll mysteriously shrink in the wash or disappear.'

Joey cackles. 'Would I do that? Would I?'

'I've _seen_ you do it, Joey Boswell. Caught red-handed. You'll never be able to convince me it didn't happen. And it's only me generosity that's saved your leather trousers from meeting the same fate.'

Joey laughs harder, kisses her forehead and they're quiet for a while, watching the embers fizzle down.

'Oh well,' Martina stands up. 'C'mon, love. Let's go to bed.'

Joey frowns. 'It's only nine.'

'Yeah,' she leans over him, and he sees a familiar twinkle in her eyes, one he hasn't seen for months now, before she kisses him. 'I know.'

Joey feels a thrill shoot through him, but it's tinged with apprehension. She's not all that stable at the moment; yes, she's in a good mood, but given she's been down for weeks, in a worse state than she's ever been, given they've potentially got some hard times ahead once she starts a treatment she's already reluctant to go through, Joey doesn't want to push things too much.

'What's wrong?' She pulls back to frown, then kisses him again, and Joey's body is fast overtaking his brain, and he's tempted to just go with it, but –

'Are you sure you're okay, sweetheart? About – '

Martina puts one finger on his lips, shushing him.

'I might have to confiscate all that leather, Mister Boswell,' she whispers, and he can _hear_ the smirk; he doesn't even need to see it on her face. 'Come upstairs and I'll take it off yer.'

* * *

They lie together for a while afterwards, just staring at the ceiling, breathing deeply and letting their heart rates slow.

'Martina,' Joey says.

She angles her head towards him. 'Mm?'

'I just want you to know…' Joey props himself up on his elbow, letting his eyes drink in her form. He reaches over, fondly touches the C-section scar that's still faintly visible on her abdomen, a small testament to everything she's done for Belle, starting with bringing her into this world. She's beautiful, that's what she is, every inch of her, and that scar only adds to her beauty, shows the remarkable lengths she'd go to for those she loves, whether those included giving up her life, paying the rent, covering for someone, marrying someone, allowing herself to be cut open for someone, being there in someone's last moments. Anyone who went down the DHSS, or the DSS, or the Jobcentre and ever labelled her as heartless clearly didn't know what they were talking about. Having got to know Martina intimately, Joey can say with absolute confidence that she has one of the biggest hearts of anyone he's ever encountered, right up there with his Mam's. And that heart, that inner beauty, has never shone through more than right now, while she's lying here unburdened, willing to move herself forward from hardship for his and Annabelle's sakes, loving him and trusting him to help her get through all this.

'I want you to know,' he says again, 'that I'll always be here, okay? I'll always take care o' you.'

She looks at him properly, her eyes glistening wet, her hand catching his as it traces its way toward her heart, holding it there.

Joey leans over her and kisses her. 'I'll always love you.'

She loses it then, the glistening becoming tears, and he reaches to catch her as she sits up and propels herself forward into his arms.

'Hey, shh, it's okay…'

'No, I'm not…' she pulls back, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, 'I'm not…_upset_, just…' she blows out a breath of air, leaning forward into him and kissing his shoulder, his neck, 'I'm sorry. About disappearing, about frightenin' Belle, about…bein' this way.'

'Hey, hey,' Joey holds her to him. His neck is wet from her tears and her kisses both. 'No sweat. You had to find things out. And that's okay, sweetheart. It really is. As for bein' that way…you're just not well, that's all. And we're workin' on getting you better, aren't we? So nothing to fret about.'

Martina kisses him again, a desperate sort of show of affection, a promise, a plea. She wants his forgiveness and his reassurance. He hastens to offer both. He doesn't hold her to what happened – she's been struggling, but she's going to get through that now. And he's going to be there for her. That's what he does. That's what Boswells do. That's what Joey Boswell does for the people he loves most.

'And, eh,' he murmurs, laughing lightly as he runs his hand through her hair, reaching his fingers towards that curl on the back of her neck that remains though the rest of her hair is straight, that he has always loved, that he has always loved to play with, 'if you descend into madness, I'm sure I can put in as your carer and get extra benefits.'

She laughs weakly, the noise mutating into a sob.

'I was jokin', I was jokin', only tryin' to cheer you up…' perhaps it's early days yet to be making light of this, to be finding humour in the situation. She needs to recover , get back to her old self and lose this ultra-sensitivity before she'll be able to look back on any of this without feeling pain. They're only at the beginning, he needs to remember. There's a lot more to come, and it's going to be hard. They won't magically get a happy ending just because Martina's got closure about her brother and has left her job. She's got a long way to go.

'Come on, sweetheart. Let's go and have a cup o' tea.'

Martina leans over his arm to look at the clock on the bedside table.

'It's two in the morning.'

'That doesn't matter, does it, sweetheart? You don't have to rush out early to get to the DHSS now, do you?'

'It's not the DHSS,' Martina says, stumbling out of bed and wrapping the sheet around herself to keep the chill out while she fumbles for her dressing gown. For a second, he detects a hint of that old Martina quality in her voice, that adorably snide, pretend-frustrated tone she always used when secretly amused by his antics. If they can get her to a state where she's like this more often, if she can be like herself most, if not all the time…they'll work towards it. Joey will make sure of that. It'll be worth it if he can see this version of her more, perhaps even every day.

'Well, you know what I mean,' he teases, getting up and moving to join her. 'DHSS, DSS, DWP, Jobcentre, the Social Security…we might as well just call it the Free Money Place and be done with it.'

Martina's laugh echoes through their bedroom, the first real laugh she's managed in a long time now, the most beautiful sound in the world.

'The Free Money Place,' she snickers. She moves closer to Joey, dropping the sheet to cup his face in her hands. 'What am I gonna do with you?'

* * *

There's something not quite right about sitting in the darkened kitchen all night, drinking endless cups of tea wrapped up together in a bedsheet, coming up with increasingly ridiculous and insulting names for the Social Security.

But there's something special about it, all the same. It's how they've always been, how their relationship works, Charm and Academics, wicked in different ways, unstoppable together. Her head is reasonably light at the moment, the combined highs of having left her horrible job and two rounds of good sex keeping the black dog temporarily behind a fence, and she's enjoying the moment.

Martina wishes it could stay like this always.

_It won't_, a voice in her head tells her. _It never, never does._

Joey looks at her, smiles, takes her hand and puts it to his lips.

Martina shuts her eyes and tries to dispel that thought. The best she can do is push it into a corner, but it still lurks.

* * *

Despite their lack of sleep, both of them are light and breezy next morning, playing and teasing with each other until Belle cheekily tells them to get a room, stopping every few minutes as they go through their routine just to pause, hold onto each other. A little sliver of Martina has been revitalised by freeing herself from her job, but it's wrestling with the rest of her, terrified and unable to face what's still to come. And so Joey grins at her, tosses little jibes her way, tries to feed and nurture that more content little piece of her. He'd told her the other day he didn't want to let her distract herself, lest she retreat back into her head, but he senses going straight from the rock of resigning to the hard place of starting treatment is too much to cope with all at once; that she needs to replenish her mental energy before going on.

And so he gives her something to hold onto, to rest in, alternates between reassuring her and teasing out a smile from her, sensing, as she musters just a little energy to taunt him back, that she needs this, is grateful for it. And though he feels a bit guilty, he needs her as well. He needs the Martina that can lift his mood a bit, that can keep Oscar's voice from echoing through his head. Perhaps that's why he's indulging her today.

They walk Annabelle to school together, taking in the crisp morning air. Joey and Martina have been forbidden from holding hands in public by Belle, who's embarrassed beyond belief by displays of affection between her parents, but every time she's not looking, their fingers brush.

'Come on, Belle,' he calls to his daughter, who's lagging behind, distracted by her iPod. 'Don't wanna be late, now, do we?'

'And if we have to stay back and explain to the 'eadmaster why you didn't make it to school on time, yer Dad'll no doubt miss 'is appointment at the _Free Money Place_,' Martina says.

'No, no, I've not got any Free Money appointments today, sweetheart,' he replies. 'Only lunch at Mam's, and the rest of the day to spend lavishin' me attention on you.'

'What's this about free money?' Annabelle has suddenly caught up with them, is holding her earbuds away from her head, ears all but actually pricked up. 'Who's gettin' free money? _I_ want free money!'

'Of course you do, love,' Martina says, lovingly squeezing her shoulder. 'You're a Boswell.'

They've arrived at school now, and Belle, though she seems eager to be off and join her mates, hangs back for a moment.

'Eh, when can I get this free money?'

Joey opens his mouth, but Martina already has a reply planned.

'Tidy yer bedroom tonight and we'll discuss it.'

'But isn't that a bit like _earning_ it?' Belle asks facetiously, and dodges the playful clip Joey aims at her ear.

'Well, it _is_.' She insists, and Joey raises his eyes to Heaven as he hugs her goodbye.

'You take care, sweetheart.'

'I will, I will.' She turns to her mother, clasping her in an embrace so tight Joey feels strangulated just watching it.

'Now,' says Annabelle, pulling back and looking at Martina with a parental gaze which could rival her own. She's already as tall as Martina. She'll be taller by the end of the year, Joey's sure. She's got his genes in the height department, he'd wager. 'Now you've not got that vile job, go and do some nice things, and try to be happy again, all right?'

Martina opens her mouth incredulously.

'All right, _mother_,' she says, shaking her head at Joey from over Belle's shoulder. 'Now where's my kiss?'

Annabelle is visibly debating the merits of complying with this request, and Joey can understand the dilemma: on the one hand, she adores her Mam, and is especially desperate for her to be happy again. On the other, when they're right in front of the school gates, with a hundred other kids milling around, it's likely someone she knows will see her, and of course, when one is thirteen years old, one doesn't want to be caught showing _too much_ affection towards one's parents. He grins, leans over his daughter and delivers a scorcher to Martina's mouth.

'There 'tis.'

'Daaad!' Belle screeches. 'For God's sake, people can _see you!'_

Joey cackles, patting her on the shoulder (his instinctive reaction when teasing is usually to ruffle the hair of the victim of the jape, but Belle is has a problem with people other than herself and Martina touching her hair. He hasn't figured out why, but it's such a little thing they haven't pursued it. Everyone is entitled to their idiosyncrasies).

'There are people _watching!'_

'Oh? Belle, I'm so _ashamed_. To think, people might've seen me give your Mam a kiss like _that_. I'll just have to try for a better one.'

'Daaaad!' Belle turns around, putting her hands on her hips, staring her father down (or rather, staring _up – _she may be catching up on height with Martina, but Joey is still over a foot taller than the both of them). 'Piss off!'

She ducks out from between them before either of them can tell her off for this, whirling in the direction of the school gates.

'Tarra!_'_ And she disappears into the throng.

'She gets this obnoxious attitude from you, you know,' Martina says.

'She gets this fear of affection from you,' Joey counters, then freezes. Wrong thing to say? He waits to see what sort of mood Martina's in, whether or not she will slide into a low point.

Martina's eyes narrow, and Joey's heart stops, but then her mouth quirks and yes, she's all right for the moment. As much as she can be.

'She gets this desire for money from _you_,' Martina grins, dares him to think of a comeback.

Joey considers, then decides on something else instead.

'She's doin' all right, our Belle.'

'Yeah,' Martina's face softens into a proper smile. 'She is.'

'Right, then,' Joey says, taking her arm in his and leading her back up the street, gentleman to the core, loving the way Martina clasps the crook of his elbow and allows herself to lean ever so slightly against him as they go, allowing herself to depend on him, 'we've still got a good three hours or so before we said we'd go over to Mam's.'

'We'd better clean up all the teacups from the kitchen, I s'pose.'

'Or,' says Joey.

'Or?'

'I know there's a little café not far from here. Very quiet, very sunny, perfect for a lovely, intimate moment between the two of us…'

'Very pricey…'

'Naturally.'

Martina stops him, untangles her arm from his, leans up to give him a kiss. 'Fabulous.'

'That's the first time I've heard you approve of a large, frivolous expenditure…'

'Well, I'm not workin' for the state, now, am I? You spend as much as you _like_.'

Joey catches her in his arms and kisses her, knocking her feet from under her and scooping her into his arms as he does.

'Love you,' he whispers into her mouth.

'You too,' she replies, and then pulls back from him, licking her lip. 'Just you make sure we 'ave enough to live on, that's all. We've still got a mortgage to pay off, you know, and bills to sort out and yer fleet of Jags are all about due a service if you want them to pass their MOTs this year, and I don't think the black one's gonna make it without some repairs…'

She's still trying to tease, but there's a concern in there she can't quite mask, her insecurities bubbling back up to the surface. What she's just done is starting to weigh on her, even if she's pretending it's not. He shushes her with another kiss.

'Don't you fret your pretty little head about all that, sweetheart,' he says gently. 'We've got plenty. I promise you.'

'But if– '

'I promise you, Martina,' Joey repeats, 'we've got plenty. If it'll set your mind at rest, I'll show you just how much, later, if you remind me.'

She raises an eyebrow, intrigued. 'Oh, yeah? I finally get to see _all_ the assets the great Joey Boswell's been hiding? This might prove interestin'.'

'And I thought you'd have snooped already.'

She snickers, pressing her forehead against his for a moment, before he sets her down.

'Shall we, then?'

'Lead the way, Mister Boswell. Lead the way.'

And Joey knows realistically that this moment is only a temporary calm before the storm, that there are difficult days ahead, but seeing Martina in this sort of mood, remembering that this part of her is inside her, that it could return most if not all the time, is worth the fight he knows is coming.


	7. Even the weariest river

**Hope everyone is still doing ok. **

**Mild crossover alert for this one; I tend to use Peter Davison from A Very Peculiar Practice when I need a generic nice doctor (also in my headcanon he travels around a lot and probably does go to Liverpool and know the Boswells later in life). Doesn't really affect anything though; he could be anyone.**

**Housekeeping: I don't own Bread, original Joey in mind, etc. There is no message in this story about anything, Martina's actions and opinions are very influenced by her emotions. She will go through a lot of different things in this fic and nothing is meant to make a point about what anyone should do or feel or think or what the 'right' thing to do is; everyone's situation is different and different things work for different people and this is JUST A STORY. Where things happen for the sake of plot. The end. **

* * *

**VI**

**Even the weariest river**

It isn't as easy as all that. Simply leaving the DWP is not enough – and Joey knew it wouldn't be, wasn't expecting a miracle, but suddenly deciding to shoulder all of Martina's pain is harder than he realised.

They have a week of reasonable happiness, tenuous but welcome, and then the realisation that she is now unemployed hits Martina hard and she falls apart in a way that terrifies Joey. It's as if now she's admitted to herself she's depressed, she's opened a floodgate she's been struggling to keep shut for a long time, and neither of them is prepared for the deluge that's been released.

Joey had expected her hideous mood would come back soon enough (it always does when something rattles her), he just didn't see if coming back this quickly. He comes home from a daytime job to find her in tears, head in her hands.

'Martina?' He drops his jacket to the ground, runs to her side. 'Sweetheart? What's wrong?'

She doesn't raise her head.

'What have I done, Joey?'

'What d'you mean?'

'Oh, God,' her voice is almost a whisper. 'What've I done?'

Joey leans down to her, hooks his fingers around hers, gently prises her hands off her face.

'You've done nowt, as far as I know…' he reaches up, strokes a tear away. 'What's all this?'

'Am I just that hopeless I couldn't even get through a normal workin' day without going to pieces?' she sounds small, lost. So unlike the fierce Martina he's come to know and love, to expect, to rely on. He's seen so much less of her these days; some days he's afraid he might never again.

'Eh, don't be like that,' he's not sure exactly how to buck her up, but he's desperate to try. 'You took thirty years of it and held yourself together better than most people would've…look at our Billy! One day in the sandwich shop all on 'is own and he was cryin' into his pillow for a week about bein' stressed…'

He's trying to inject a bit of humour into the situation, but Martina doesn't respond to it. She's too far gone.

'Martina, look…' he tries again, not really sure where he's going with it now, just desperate to alleviate some of her pain by any means necessary.

'I'm sorry, love…' Martina looks up at him briefly, a teardrop catching between her eyelashes. '…it's pathetic, I know…'

'No, Martina, no…' Joey scrambles up and takes her in his arms. 'It's not pathetic to cry, sunshine. I know you try, but you can't just force down your emotions all the time. Eventually they're gonna force their way back up, aren't they?'

And he is amazed at his own wisdom. For so long, Martina has been keeping a lid on her emotions. Of course it was only a matter of time before Pandora's box couldn't fit any more in it, and it started to leak. She has always tried to shove her feelings away, her memories, her pain, thinking it will make her stronger to simply appear as if she doesn't feel at all. But he knows, has always known, that this isn't right. That she can't keep doing this. That it will hurt more in the long run. Martina is human, despite what some of her claimants might think. She has hurts and fears and needs and wants and pain, just like anyone else. And because of the life she's led, the life she still feels she has to live, she's learned to believe the only way to survive is to act as if she doesn't care.

Joey had found her mask of stone quite impressive at one time, but getting to know her had changed that. Her heart is riddled with bleeding holes, and she's not allowing them to heal, simply stopping them up instead. She's such a beautiful person; he's always seen it, and he hates what this is doing to her, hates the fact that she hides away that inner beauty and caring and love and allows it to wither and her heart to fester in her attempts to be impenetrable. She isn't impenetrable. She never will be. Every hurt still pierces just as hard as with anyone else – perhaps harder – and she can't protect herself just by not acknowledging them.

He holds her close, cradling her head against his shoulder, rubbing her back in an attempt to calm her.

'Just let yourself feel what you're feelin', okay? Don't box it in. It's just gettin' pent up, and that's doin' you more damage.'

'I can't, Joey,' she gasps.

'You can,' Joey says firmly. 'You're overdue a good cry – even a few. As many as it takes. There's no weakness in it, sweetheart. None whatsoever.'

Martina presses her face into his chest and goes on sobbing, each gulp and breath shaking her body violently. She's kept this in for so many years, accumulating it all, and there is so much of it to be expunged, so much to be dredged up and dealt with in turn– it's going to take a long time.

It's going to be hard.

Joey is going to be there.

He keeps tight hold of her.

* * *

Joey is optimistic about her seeing a psychologist. He reassures her repeatedly that his own experiences with it, coping with Shifty's loss, helped significantly.

Martina – less so. Sounds like a bloody nuisance, humiliation and waste of time all rolled into one. Barely ten minutes into her first session she's already confirmed that theory, and all her psychologist has really done is introduce himself.

Doctor Daker is soft and lovely, which inexplicably annoys Martina more than if he'd been the arrogant bastard she'd been expecting. He's got a voice not unlike Oswald's but without the familiarity, and Martina wonders whether she should have just gone and thrown herself on her brother-in-law's mercy rather than go through this hellish experience. She'd spoken to Oswald out of desperation back when she was pregnant, when he briefly offered church-based counselling, had confided her fears Annabelle might grow up like her and her general downcast sense that without Joey and Belle, there seemed very little in her life worth living for. And he'd been remarkably understanding, had actually lifted her mood temporarily. She'd have spoken to him again, only Oswald is family and she draws a line where taking advantage of family's kindness is concerned. (Not only that, Aveline has a minor fit if Martina so much as says hello to Oswald. Martina admit, when Oswald had stormed into the DSS back in '89 to find out why Aveline was taking so long, she'd found him easy on the eye. She'll defend to the death, however, that that is as far as it went. She's never been seriously interested – Oswald is too straight-laced for her taste, which has always consisted of slightly roguish bastards).

An hour in Doctor Daker's office feels like twelve. His gentleness and attempts to reassure her don't mask the hard truths he's trying to get her to accept. He's raking her over the coals, and then offering her a few plasters to cover her gouging wounds.

This doesn't feel like help to her. It feels very much like criticism. Her thinking is _distorted_. She _overgeneralises _and jumps to conclusions. She blames too easily. She ignores evidence that contradicts her negative views of the world.

She registers vaguely that there are ways to work on all these things, that he wants to talk her through them over the coming weeks.

It sounds like nothing more than a new form of torture, and she finds herself longing for the familiar dysfunction of her old job. At least she knew her enemy there, could predict what she was up against.

'I'm not a bloody car,' she snaps. 'You can't just make a shopping list of all me broken parts and…' she can't finish. And what? Fix them? Grind them in her face, rub it in that her mind doesn't work the way it's supposed to, that she's suffering needlessly and can't do anything about it?

She doesn't realise she's said that out loud until his eyebrow goes up.

'Did I say that?'

Martina blinks. Not what she expected him to say. She'd imagined he'd back down as soon as she retaliated. Not answer back. Not answer her questions with more questions, designed, probably, to floor her. She does not like this. Not at all.

'It was implied,' she grumbles.

'Was it? What did I say that implied that?'

Oh, God. He's got the gift of the gab as well. Probably has training in how to use it, too. She wasn't prepared for a mental spar today, and it throws her off-balance.

'Everywhere I go,' Martina says, more to herself than to him, 'I'm surrounded by people usin' their gobs to drive me mad.'

* * *

Joey picks her up, and his sympathy and winsome smile and pathetic platitudes that it's early days do nothing to lift the damp sponge that has settled on her countenance. And when she walks into the house, already caught in a hurricane, her mood cut to ribbons, the last thing Martina wants to see is Belle doing something shady.

But, joy of joys, the first thing she notices when she trudges into the parlour is her daughter on the phone, using a sickening salesperson voice to try and offload her shares on some unsuspecting sod. Her mood shades to black. The world is crumbling around her and Annabelle is wilfully destroying hers with her ridiculous petty crime.

'Word has it it'll go up…I've got it on good authority, haven't I?'

Martina grits her teeth, gestures crossly at Annabelle. Her daughter takes no notice.

'C'mon, dy'ou want it or not? You've got three seconds to decide or I'm 'angin' up the phone.'

Martina's had it. She yanks the phone out of Belle's hand and ends the call herself.

'Oi!'

'Did we or did we not,' she says, practically spitting poison, 'have a discussion about you selling shares?'

'Might've touched on it,' Annabelle mutters vaguely, eyes wandering everywhere but in the direction of her mother's face.

'Oh, yeah? And what did we _touch on_ regarding whether you were allowed to continue with it?'

'It was open-ended,' Belle says cheekily. 'Now could you return my mobile, please?'

Annabelle's pseudo-charming voice has clearly been learnt off Joey. It reminds her of the old days at work. It also fills her with white-hot fury.

'Er – no, I couldn't,' Martina pockets it, much to Annabelle's surprise and horror.

'Eh! Give over!'

'If you want this back tonight, Annabelle, I want to see all the work you were given at school today completed – and you can do a decent job of it for a change! I've 'ad it with gettin' reports back where you've got a mark of twenty per cent or less because you _think _you're above obeyin' the rules.'

Belle open her gob to respond.

'And _don't_,' Martina cuts her off, 'give me any of that rubbish about it not bein' relevant to your future. I am _this_ close to snapping, Annabelle. Schoolwork done by nine o'clock if you want your mobile back – and if I find any evidence on it you've been up to something you shouldn't you're in for it.'

Annabelle snorts insolently. 'How're you gonna find anything on it? You can't even use it!'

She's actually right there, but it only serves to make Martina see even redder.

'_Nine o'clock, Annabelle.'_

'And if I don't?' Belle's eyes lock with hers, defiant. It erodes her last shred of calm.

'You might think, _Miss Boswell_,' her frostiest, most ferocious DHSS-lady tone comes out of her automatically, provoked out of hibernation, 'that you can use that criminal little mind of yours to take people for whatever they've got, and then play me for a fool and think I'll just turn a blind eye to what you're doing. But I've dealt with bigger, more devious Boswells than you – and I have crushed them to bits.'

Belle is visibly taken aback by her cold voice, her stony expression.

'And if that's the way you want to play it, Annabelle, we can do it that way. And if you want to avoid _severe_ consequences, I suggest you do what you're_ supposed _to be doing. Do you understand?'

The silence rings in her ears.

'All right,' Belle says quietly, eyes lowered. 'I'll go and do it.'

For all Annabelle is impertinent, brazenly up to her ears in tricks and schemes, she's not Joey. She's a child. And Martina only has to tighten the screws slightly for her to break under the pressure of it. Martina has never applied the full force of her sternness on her daughter before, did it now without really thinking, expected some sort of pushback or smarmy attempt at an excuse. It takes her aback how easily Belle succumbed to it, how quickly she folded.

This is what she thought she wanted – her daughter dropping that cheeky, pestiferous attitude of hers and actually doing what she's told for once.

The sight of it makes Martina sick.

* * *

It only takes half an hour before Martina caves and gives Belle back her phone. She's always been a soft touch where her daughter is concerned, feels guilty being harsh with her over anything.

'Eh, Mam,' Annabelle says reassuringly when Martina tries to choke out an apology, 'I get it, you know. You're goin' through a lot. And livin' with two criminal geniuses like me and Dad can be a lot to handle.'

Belle's grinning now, and though she's still trying to annoy her, Martina is thankful she didn't do any damage.

She sighs. 'Can you give the criminal genius bit a rest? I've 'ad a terrible day.'

'I thought you might have.' Annabelle's head finds it way onto her shoulder. 'I can try, but it's against me nature.'

Martina finds herself stroking Belle's hair without thinking.

'Can't you just be a normal teenage girl? Think about blokes in yer form or something?'

'What do I wanna think about them for? I'll just marry Davey and keep the bloodline strong.'

'Oh, God,' Martina puts her head in her hands.

'Steady on, Mam, I was just screwin' with yer.' Annabelle is laughing now. 'What did you do, then, that was so normal?'

Martina thinks back. 'No, don't take after me, love. I used to get into me brother's supply of Scotch. And if I find out Oscar's been furnishing you with any alcohol, I'll be stringing you both up from the highest and most public places in this street.'

Annabelle wrinkles her nose. 'I wouldn't take anything from Oscar. He's not my brother – he's just a bastard.'

Martina's surprised enough to let the swearing slip. Annabelle has never spoken ill of Oscar. She admired him when she was young, has barely said much about him since he stole money from them.

And it dawns on her that a part of her resentment towards Oscar Hartwell is more than mere insecurity or annoyance that Joey keeps falling for his tricks. It's the fact that Oscar used and discarded Annabelle the way Roger did her.

'I know, love,' she says, squeezing Belle's shoulder. 'I know.'

* * *

And so begins four weeks of hell. Martina comes back from every trip to the psychologist wishing she'd never been, and she can't tell whether she's worked herself up into this state, or whether it's just genuinely horrific. She views each impending visit with dread, bristles and clamps her mouth shut when she's asked anything, tunes out advice and instructions on how to employ daft coping mechanisms that can't possibly work (_breathing_, really?!) Her temper is shorter than before, and when she comes home, she feels the world is caving in around her.

On the other end of the insanity spectrum, Joey's optimism knows no bounds.

'Look – it says here,' he shoves his laptop towards her. 'Sometimes people _do_ feel worse to begin with. It's normal. You just need to keep perseverin', that's all.'

Martina doesn't even glance at it. She hates the internet, wishes it had never been invented, because Joey now believes he can be an expert on just about everything just because he looked it up. It drives her up the wall. He's worse than bloody Billy in that respect. (No, she takes that back. Billy likes to look up horrifically gory things just to scaremonger. She's thankful she never grew wisdom teeth, after having gruesome extraction videos shoved in her face in the leadup to Francesca having hers out, and having descriptions of the agony of dry sockets read out to her afterwards).

'If it's that difficult,' she says obstinately, 'it's not a cure.'

'How'd you work that out?'

She shrugs, though truthfully she can't answer, because the answer is somewhat immature. She worked that out because it's how she feels things are going to go, and right now, with despair ebbing and flowing around her at a dizzying rate, feeling it'll go this way is the absolute, irrefutable truth.

'There's no logical sense to that. Cures _are_ difficult, sweetheart. Nothin' that's worth anythin' comes easy.'

'So says the man who's managed never to do an honest day's work in his life.'

'I had a shop for a few years, not forgetting.'

'Your _Dad_ had a shop. You just did what you always did – came to my counter to scrounge benefts for it and called that pulling your weight.'

'That's not true and you know it.'

'Well, your internet rubbish isn't true either.'

She can beat him at his own game. She snatches the laptop from him, opens a new tab.

_Can depression go away on its own_

'_Martina,_' Joey's using the disappointed voice he uses on Annabelle or Billy when they let him down – his _I'm saddened you're even trying to say this to me_ voice. He seems just as aware as she is that she's clutching at straws. 'If yours could, it would have by now.'

'It does _sometimes_,' she insists through gritted teeth.

'And it always comes back,' Joey tugs the laptop back, shuts it. 'I'm not arguin' with you on this anymore, sweetheart. I'm puttin' me foot down – you need to just accept that if you want this gone, you might have to put up with some things you don't like.'

Martina snorts out her disapproval. In spite of her her body language, her ferocious stares indicating he'd better shut up now, Joey keeps going.

'Remember when you were pregnant with Belle? And you thought you'd never connect with her? You persisted with talkin' to her and it worked, didn't it?'

'That's nowhere near the same! You're talking about my daughter – me own flesh and blood. Not sittin' in a torture chamber for an hour slowly sinking into the depths of despair.'

Joey looks at her sadly.

'You're not lettin' yourself try, Martina.'

If he makes one more comment like that, her head might explode. _Not letting herself try_. He has no idea. Her head's being attacked from all sides. It's not a question of trying; it's a question of sinking into the ocean without anything to hold onto. And Joey being a condescending bastard is just making it worse. It reminds her of the old days, sitting opposite her trying to screw the system out of some ill-deserved money, driving her insane. She'd loathed him then. Had wished more than anything she could shut her eyes and make her pathetic existence, the cage of that glass lie detector, Joey's smug face and taunts all melt away.

And yet, now she's sitting here with no job, no hope, no rest from Joey's relentless misguided attempts at forcing her to take care of herself, there's nothing she wouldn't give, Martina thinks, to have those days back.

* * *

It's hard sometimes.

Very hard.

Martina doesn't take kindly to treatment, and when it forces emotions out that she doesn't want to deal with, or when she finds herself reaching a dark place quicker than normal, Joey more often than not takes the brunt of it.

When Martina turns around and snaps at him, blames him for something he never did, gives him a hateful look, tells him he's no help, Joey wants so badly to throw in the towel, snap back, say _well deal with it yourself_. It takes all of his willpower to remember that Martina is not deliberately being nasty, that she's lashing out because of a pain she can't control, not trying to hurt him.

Joey has been patient before. He's listened to Adrian and Billy's same rows numerous times. He's been more than reasonable with Roxy and her manipulation over the years and now, though he tries to be firm, he prides himself he's still reasonable with Oscar as well. He's forgiven his Dad over and over, even when the anger at him for repeatedly hurting his Mam (and all of them) still burns fiercely more often than not. But there has always come a time when he's reached his own breaking point, snapped at his brothers to _just cut it_, walked away from Roxy, ignored Oscar's calls, told his Dad either to choose once and for all between his Mam and Lilo Lil or to not come home at all.

It would be so easy now to tell Martina to snap out of it and get over herself, the way she used to tell people to pull themselves together from the other side of her counter, to walk away, to hit back with his own words every time her digs touch a nerve somewhere within him.

But he can't do that. More than ever before, he needs to remain calm and diplomatic, see her through this. He loves Martina. He loves the Martina who's still inside this one, the kind, loving one, the feisty, strong one, the one who teases him and calls him Mister Boswell and protects Annabelle and understands his love for his family. He knows that Martina is not lost. On her good days, she shines through. On her bad days, she's impossible to see. But he's seen enough to know she's still there.

And so he keeps being patient, even if he has to leave the room for a few minutes to grit his teeth and growl and hyperventilate into a pillow and then come back. He keeps reassuring her, even when she's verbally abusing him, berating him as if he is even less than one of her Social Security clients, waits out the storm, and when it dies down, when she calms and returns to a more rational state, he steps in to scoop up the pieces of her and hold them together.

Today Joey can tell when he wakes up that they're headed for another row. Martina's got a psychologist appointment this afternoon, and they've barely sat up in bed when she's being overly critical and snappish, taking out her irritation at the inevitable on him.

Joey gets through the morning as best he can, urges her to eat something, ushers her into the Jag when it gets to half past one, tuning out whatever protests she's hurling his way.

Martina sulks and grumbles the whole car ride there, then decides, as she does nearly every visit, that she is not going to do it today.

'Come on,' he says, when she refuses to budge from the car, eventually leaning in and tugging her out. He gestures to the building. 'In you go.'

'I don't need this,' Martina growls.

'Well, I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you're gonna get this whether you think you need it or not.'

Joey tightens his grip on her arm.

'Come on. It's an hour of your life.'

'It's an hour of me life wasted every Wednesday for God knows how long,' Martina says obstinately, refusing to budge. 'And I'm not puttin' up with it anymore.'

Joey rolls his eyes, a bit fed up with going through this nearly every bloody time.

He grabs her other arm, turns her around to face him.

'What part of _I'm puttin' me foot down_ do you not understand, Martina? Like it or not, this is for your own good. And that means, sunshine, that if I have to drag you in there kickin' and screamin' every Wednesday for the rest of our lives, then so be it.'

Martina's shoulders tense, her eyes flashing with anger. She doesn't take kindly to Joey's stern paterfamilias act being turned on her, is used to being the one doing the telling off and the lecturing, but Joey doesn't much care. He's let her stubbornly perpetuate her own misery for far too long, wimpishly standing by and not saying anything, and he cannot allow that to continue. He let Shifty die because he didn't do enough. He's not going to let that happen to Martina, even if that means fighting with his wife to get her to take care of herself properly, bearing the physical and mental bruises she bestows on him for doing so.

'What makes you think you have the right,' Martina says furiously, even though she's visibly aware she's losing the battle, 'to force me to see a psychologist?'

_Aw, hey, Martina. Not again. _When she shades into a foul mood, it's as if all logic leaves her brain.

It's all Joey can do to keep calm. He's only human, and some days, some horrendous, guilt-filled days, he just can't manage it, snaps back at her. He feels he's coming dangerously close to that point.

'It's not my _right_,' he says through his teeth, 'it's my _responsibility_ to force you to see a psychologist.'

Joey takes advantage of her shock at this comment, the momentary lapse in her guard, to grab her firmly by the arm and propel her into the building, walking so briskly she can either let herself go with him or risk tripping over.

'Martina Boswell for Doctor Daker at two o'clock,' he tells the receptionist, sealing Martina's inability to get out of it, and then he presses a hard kiss to her forehead and leaves her there.

* * *

She's so angry, so agitated when her name is called that instead of playing her usual game and seeing how long she can sit in silence before she's asked something, she opens her mouth the second she sits down and a tearful tirade about Joey comes pouring out. Mainly along the lines of who does he think he is, forcing her in here like that, but once she's started she can't shut herself up, and out of nowhere she's broadcasting her fears Joey will leave her, will disappear one day the same as everyone else in her life.

He doesn't say anything, just sits patiently and watches her.

'Don't look at me like this is some sort of_ progress_,' Martina says when she's expelled the last of her errant thoughts. 'I'm at me wits' end – and you're in firing range.'

He laughs at her then, a soft endeared chuckle that gets on her nerves.

'Is that really likely?' he asks her once his gob has settled. 'Joey disappearing? Or is it just something you're worried about?'

Martina glares at him. 'Stop it. That's a trick question.'

'How so?'

She sighs. 'It's not either-or.'

'How often has that sort of thing actually happened?'

'Oh, _let's see_,' Martina says acidly. 'Time and time again I knew me dad was wastin' all the money me mam earned, and it kept on happening until he died. I feared the worst had happened to Roger, and he disappeared for just about the rest of his life, having committed crimes so horrific me own parents tried to hide them from me. I knew the fellas I loved throughout me life would end up usin' me and breakin' me heart – and _oh, look, they did, _and – '

'And yet your husband has stayed with you for how many years?'

Martina rolls her eyes. 'Don't play that one, love. It's just a matter of time.'

'Do you really believe he's like that?'

She huffs. 'It's not the same.'

'How so?'

'Is there a reason for this interrogation? I mean, is there a point you're tryin' to get to, or are you just bein' nosy?'

'I'm just trying to understand,' Doctor Daker is implacably calm, 'why you're so insistent the worst is going to happen.'

'Well…why wouldn't it?' Oh, God, she's got to stop talking to him. Stop engaging with him. It's what he wants, and she can't afford any lapses, or she won't be able to fence her emotions back in. She's barely able to keep them at bay as it is. To borrow her brother-in-law's favourite phrase, she's hanging by a thread – and it's on the verge of snapping.

And in spite of her best efforts, it does. Perhaps it was Joey doing her head in this morning, dragging her here, perhaps it's just an amalgamation of every blow the past few weeks have dealt her, but she just can't hold it in today. She feels so horrible, as if her insides have been shredded, there's not much point in trying to keep herself safe. She's already a pile of shavings on the floor.

And so she tells the nosy bastard—about how hard it is to trust anyone, how she's made decisions that have hurt her family because of poor judgement – particularly her parents, who were trying to warn her about her brother,. About Shifty, how she didn't realise he suffered more than she thought. Her history with Joey, founded on conflict and mistrust, the number of times she's shoved him as far away from her as possible, deliberately dug the knife in where it hurts because it doesn't half frighten her that she'll have loved him and it'll all have been for nought. How the last time she saw her Mam, her mother had more or less told her she'd done her considerable harm, and instilled a fear in her she might treat Joey and Annabelle the same way, and how it might, she's afraid, be true…

'In that case, what can you do about it? I'm sure you can sit down with her – and Joey, for that matter – and –'

'And what happens when it's already too late for that?' Martina snaps before she can stop herself. Oh, bloody hell. She doesn't like letting her feelings escape from her like this. Not in front of a bastard she doesn't trust. But it's a bit late now; she's done it again, and besides, he's suggesting the impossible.

'Shifty's _dead_. My father is _dead_. There's no getting them back, _is there?_ There's no making amends, _that's it_. The way we left things is it. Forever.'

'Well, what would you have said if you could have?'

The question stuns her. She wasn't looking for him to probe her, had sort of hoped she'd said enough to shut him up.

Martina looks at the floor. 'I don't know.'

'I don't expect you to have an answer,' Doctor Daker says gently. 'I just want you to think about it.'

* * *

'Don't speak to me, Joey,' Martina says to him when she comes out. 'I mean it – not one word, or I might turn round and murder yer.'

'So he said something you didn't like…'

Bad move. Martina slams the car door hard, nearly trapping Joey's fingers. He sighs, resigns himself to driving home in silence.

* * *

Her foul mood continues all evening.

Martina makes a point of being cheerful to Belle and cold to him, goes up to bed around nine and huffs audibly from beneath the covers when he follows her.

Joey's a bit fed up. He rips them off her head, stands over her.

'I'd appreciate it, sweetheart, if you didn't sulk at me for tryin' to take care of you. It's beneath yer to act all childish like this. And _you_ _know it is_.'

She looks at him resentfully, but he can see her eyes are a bit watery, and _God_, he wants to be pissed off, but Martina with weepy eyes is something he just can't bear to see. He climbs into bed beside her, wraps his arms around her.

'_Joey, don't – '_

'Look,' Joey pulls her closer to him, ignoring her attempts to shove him away. 'I don't think this is right. Seein' someone is supposed to help. It's not supposed to make things worse.'

Perhaps he's actually hit the right nerve this time, because Martina relaxes, stops resisting his efforts to hold her. Joey adjusts them so she's cocooned in his arms, head against his shoulder. She sighs heavily, relief mingled with disappointment.

'It's just another thing in me life I dread, Joey.'

Joey rubs her back, between her shoulderblades, bestows a kiss upon her forehead.

'It's supposed to be teachin' you how to cope.'

'Well, it's not.'

'Is he giving you anything helpful at all?'

Martina grimaces. 'Every time there's something else I 'ave to do or think about, and every time I say something, he's questioning me and probin' me and trying to force answers out of me that I don't know, and tellin' me the way I'm thinking is wrong, and forcing me to think about things that hurt, and I just can't…I'm just bangin' me head against a wall, Joey. And I've achieved nothing other than making it bleed.'

Joey remembers his own experience so differently – comfort and reassurance when he needed it the most. Advice that he needed to hear, that got him back together enough to be there for the others. It's a stark contrast to what Martina seems to be experiencing.

'So either,' Joey says, kissing her forehead again, 'he's rubbish, and we need to find you someone else, _or_ you're resistin' it too much and you need to accept what he's tellin' you…or it's not enough.'

He doesn't like throwing that last one out there. Martina hasn't been reacting well today as it is, but she simply sighs.

'You might be right.' She looks up at him, eyes big and blue and trusting. He hasn't seen that look in a long time, and it was the last thing he was expecting to see today, but it awakens a little stirring of hope in his chest.

'I don't think it's gonna be enough. How's therapy gonna help me if I can't even cope enough to consider what I'm being told?'

She opens her fist, a crumpled piece of paper inside it.

'What d'you think?'

Joey takes it. It's her prescription.

'I wasn't saying do that.'

'I know. But I'm at me wit's end, Joey.' She exhales again. 'I'm asking your advice – and don't gloat about your Boswell wisdom, thanks ever so. I mean it.'

'I don't know what advice to give.' He can't even respond to that last bit. It's nice she's trying to act normal, but it's forced, and the conversation is too intense to bother with pleasantries. Joey's always prided himself on trying to steer his family in the right direction when they come to him, but this falls far, far beyond his area of expertise.

'I don't know what to _do_, Joey.'

'It's a hard decision, Martina, either way. I know that. But it has to be _your_ decision. Not the doctor's, not mine. _Yours._'

'Would it be yours if you were me?'

'I don't know how to answer that.'

Martina considers. She shuts her eyes, breathes slowly; Joey can hear her counting under her breath. He understands her dilemma. She's been assured it'll help. She's been told there are side effects, though, and those frighten her but the prospect of waking up one morning and feeling all right, not miserable and exhausted, well, that draws her in, as does the stubborn part of her that has decided just about anything has to be better than counselling, the part that, Joey's sure, doesn't want to be vulnerable, is desperately trying to avoid that feeling. And then it all clashes with the part of her that thinks needing help for anything, regardless of what form that help takes, is cowardice.

Joey gently touches her arm. She's putting too much pressure on herself. He's not sure, if she makes a decision this hastily, that it'll be the right one. Either way.

'Sleep on it. Okay?'

'If I can get any.'

'If you can get any,' Joey repeats. There's no use reassuring her she will; it strangely seems to have the opposite effect on her, keeping her awake even longer. He doesn't understand how that works, exactly, though Martina's tried explaining it to him dozens of times, that thinking about sleep for some reason destroys any chance of actually achieving it. Joey's had plenty of sleepless nights himself, but they've always been linked to some personal crisis. With Martina, it seems the mere prospect of needing to sleep is enough to keep her up.

It takes her a good two hours to drop off, during which time Joey does his best to keep still and quiet so as not to disturb her, not even bothering to change out of his clothes lest the noise undo any progress towards slumber. Once she finally does, he slides one arm over her waist and nestles closer to her, as perturbed by the situation as she is. He plays out how all the options might go in his head, tries to think what he would do, can't work it out. Part of him thinks she's hoping taking something will somehow fix everything for her, that she's just trying to find an easier way, trying to get out of any more afternoons in a psychologist's office. Martina is stubborn, after all, and once she's decided something is not to her liking, it's damn near impossible to change her mind.

Then again, Martina's stubborn streak usually results in her staying put, sticking with something even if it half-kills her, just because she doesn't like changing things in her life (exhibits A and B: Shifty and the Social Security). For some reason she's afraid to continue with it, perhaps because it's forcing her to uncover memories she's deliberately kept buried all these years. And yet she's equally afraid of the alternatives.

What's worse, he can't think of which way to advise her. He's not even sure it's either-or. Knows sod all about any of this, has nothing to base any advice on. All he knows is he wants _something_ to work for her. Is petrified himself – not necessarily about her going through treatment, but what happens if she fails. He's been forced over time to accept Shifty's death, but some little piece of him, usually buried as deep as Joey can manage, still thinks it's partially his fault. He doesn't want to see Martina heading the same way if she thinks nothing is working for her, tortures himself with the possibility until his paranoia gets the better of him, and he slips out of bed, gathering up all the paracetamol in the house and stashing it in the glove box of his Jaguar XJ. Just in case.

He's leaning against the car, shivering slightly in the cold garage, wondering if there's any way he can make a revelation come to him when his mobile bleats.

Joey has a sinking feeling he knows who it is before he even takes the phone out of his pocket. It's eleven-thirty at night, he's not working tonight, Jack's well and his Dad's temporarily around; no reason for Nellie to be in a flap. That only leaves –

'Oscar,' he answers it, resigned.

'Joey, I'm at the police station,' his son says before he can get another word out.

Joey feels his jaw fall. '_What?!'_

'I need you to help me, Joey, I – '

He can barely even hear the rest of Oscar's sentence.

'I'll – I'll…just…' he can't even bring himself to answer properly, either. The shock of it is ice in his system. He's frozen to the spot. He hangs up, having not really said anything, and leans back against the car, his breaths coming as unsteady gasps bordering on hyperventilation.

And, though he's shaking, though he's not really processing, the next thing he knows he's in his car.

* * *

Martina wakes at two out of habit, the remnants of disturbing but incoherent dreams still swirling around her mind. It's colder than usual, and she shifts over to Joey's side of the bed, intent on stealing some warmth from him, not to mention a bit of comfort, only to find herself lying on a cool, empty mattress.

She sits up abruptly, flicks on the lamp.

Joey isn't there.

She counts on her fingers, tries to remember. He's working nights on Friday and Saturday this week. It's the cusp of Thursday morning.

'Joey?' she calls weakly. Gets up, pads down the passage to the bathroom. It's unoccupied. Goes downstairs, checks the kitchen. Nobody there.

Martina's heart begins to pound for reasons she doesn't fully understand. There's something sinister about Joey not being here that churns her insides. She'd been trying to talk through something important with him; she wants him around, in case an answer comes to her. And, though she's loath to admit it, just because she wants to have him there during the worst of her turmoil.

She checks the garage and her fears are confirmed – his silver Jag is gone, a conspicuous empty gap in his neat line of dubiously-acquired classic cars.

They haven't exactly had a good day today. Martina's aware she's been antagonistic nearly all day in her desperate attempt to make sense of why she can't stand therapy – and Joey's patience, she's quite sure, is finite. And that haunting thought comes back to her – has it become too much for him to take?

Her legs give way beneath her; she slumps to the floor, struggling to control her breathing.

_Oh, God_, _where did he go? Why did he go? He's had enough of me._

Doctor Daker's voice floats through her head.

_Is that really likely, or is it just something you're worried about? _

Problem is, she can't tell the difference between the two. She's never been able to.

* * *

**Oh, Joey... I promise you, this isn't what it looks like, though. **


	8. Oedipus Rex with a saviour complex

**Hope everything is going well for everyone. We're over halfway through this fic now, which means some hard stuff is coming, but if you're patient, some nicer stuff too. The reason behind Joey's disappearance is revealed in this one (I did promise it wasn't what it looked like), and some Joey egoism. **

**As usual, I don't own Bread, original Joey in mind, there is no message being conveyed about mental health or any option in particular, just an exploration of how Martina's specific experiences are being played out and this is just a story.**

* * *

**VII**

**Oedipus Rex with a saviour complex**

It's half past one in the morning when he gets to London. It's a daft idea to even consider doing this now, when all the world's asleep and knocks on the door will likely get ignored, or result in a call to the police if he's unlucky.

Joey tries anyway. Martina's not the only one at their wit's end – Joey can't go on with Oscar's guilt harpoon pointed at his chest, not when he's trying to cope with everything in his own life and guide Martina through a difficult patch as well. And if Oscar won't listen, this might work. Well, there's a small chance. It's worth a try.

'Joey?'

Roxy's surprise registers when she answers the door to him, but she steps back and lets him in all the same.

'Joey Boswell? _Joey Boswell_ here on my doorstep after all this time?'

'Look, I'm sorry to bother you at this hour…' not to mention after nearly fifteen years with no contact at all, 'but I need to talk to yer. It's important.'

Joey sinks into the armchair she gestures to, and Roxy sits opposite him on the sofa, hands folded, face expectant.

She's put on an enormous amount of weight, which for some reason pleases Joey, as does the fact that her hair is frazzled and those ordinary-girl pretty looks have gone to pot. Her resentment shows on her face now, she's stopped hiding it behind big pleading eyes, only coming out after someone didn't jump to her demands; it just sits there on the surface now.

It's petty of him, but he's pleased she hasn't aged well. Truth be told, he's a bit smug about it.

(Joey himself can't really talk; he's doing okay but that layer of fat on his stomach just won't be shifted; his nose is almost permanently red, like his dad's, there are a lot of lines around his eyes and far too many greys running through his dark hair. Martina, on the other hand, in spite of what life has thrown at her, looks fantastic. Could probably pass for ten years younger and nobody would question it. He's almost jealous, only Martina deserves small mercies wherever she can get them. When it comes to Roxy, though, to the woman who tried to destroy him, every minor misery is a victory.)

'Bit like old times, this, isn't it? You turning up in the middle of the night because you just _had_ to see me.'

Joey makes no comment. He's not going to give Roxy any bait.

'How times have changed. How's your _wife?_ Martina?'

'She's fine,' Joey says awkwardly. He doesn't like to give away too much personal information, given Roxy's favourite game was always to use it against him. From the look of disappointment on her face, she was seemingly hoping something had gone wrong in his marriage, so she could get a few good twists of the knife in.

'Still managing to keep that up, then?'

'Easily,' his voice is cold.

'She mustn't mind playing second fiddle to your _Mam_.'

'Martina knows fam-i-ly are important,' he's growling now, and he mentally slaps himself. She's already got a rise out of him and he hasn't been here two minutes.

'Second wife _and_ second in your life – if that. How lovely for her.'

'Technically, seein' as you were already married, in the eyes of the church I've only been married once.' He's really got to stop retaliating. She pushes his buttons too well.

'Good Catholic boy only when it suits him. You haven't changed much, Joey.'

'Evidently nor have you.' He doesn't need to elaborate, lets his insinuations about her hang.

'Why did you come here?'

'You know why.'

Roxy feigns ignorance.

'It's about Oscar.' Joey's face is stony.

'Oscar?'

'Why haven't you done anything?'

'Oh, I can't stand these sorts of _games_, Joey!'

'Don't try that one, Roxy,' he growls. 'Surely you _know_ where he is right this minute.'

If she doesn't, she's in for a rude awakening. And if she does…well, it proves to Joey undoubtedly that she's using Oscar's situation for her own gain. Either way, he's angry with her.

She looks at the floor, and Joey knows she knows.

'Didn't see this comin' at all?' he prompts. 'You see 'im every day – Roxy, you must've been aware he was headed this way – '

'Oh, and if you care so much about where he's headed, Joey, why didn't you help him get out of this mess?'

Joey sees flames in front of his eyes.

'It never occurred to _you_ to step in at any point? Why weren't you steppin' in every day of his life?! I've only been able to _speak _to him for a few years, haven't I…' Joey has to stop himself, take a couple of deep breaths, because this one cuts deep. Missing those years at Roxy's hands, sending pitiful letters, cards, money, Christmas presents, and having nothing to go on but hope and prayer that Oscar knew they were from him but trying, always _trying_ with no end, because he couldn't just walk away or give up, because all he could do was _try_ as hard as he possibly could, in as many different ways as he could, to keep a thread of contact alive. Now he knows the path Oscar's been going down, that resentment grows stronger still – if Joey had been there, he wonders, could he have helped, come to some sort of truce with Roxy so they could put on a united front and deal with this, help while Oscar was still impressionable enough to listen…

He grits his teeth, swallows his anger, goes on.

'A bit late, don't you think, to have any influence? Where were you all this time? Where was Alberto and where were all your other lovers who had more presence in Oscar's life than I did? And what he does now…Roxy, that's on him. I can't step in and clean up his messes. He's too old to be waitin' for someone to pick up after the damage he's done…'

Roxy scoffs. 'Oh, that's rich, that is, Joey! Ever Mister Fixer-Upper of everyone's problems, Oedipus Rex with a saviour complex to boot, stepping in every time your Mam or one of your brothers had so much as an itch and scratchin' it yourself…I suppose when it's someone without sainted Boswell blood, it's a different matter, isn't it? For all you _claim_, Joey, that Oscar is just as much your child as that wild girl of yours, the truth always will out. He's not your family, else you'd be wearing yourself thin trying to help him out.'

Explosions go off inside Joey's head. He knows, logically he _knows_ that Roxy is kicking him in the mental dangly bits, that every word is a poison barb designed to wound in the most painful way possible – but even knowing what she's trying to do, it still hurts. She's tripped every emotional mine in his head, blown them all up, touched every nerve he has – his family, his love for Oscar despite lack of blood ties, his own daughter – all in one fell swoop.

It's the biggest struggle of his life to keep his voice even.

'I don't see _you_ wearin' yourself thin, as you put it, to get 'im out of there either.'

'And where d'you think I'd get that sort of money from? _You cut me off_ if you don't remember.'

'From what I heard, up til a couple o' years ago, Stan, Alberto and I were _all_ still sendin' you money. Three lots of it, Roxy. Three regular payments. Surely you couldn't have wasted all that?'

Judging by her house, she's certainly used it to her advantage. Joey knows expensive things when he sees them.

'Oh, go on, Joey, accuse me, then. Accuse me of bleedin' you dry – you live in Gateacre from what I've heard, so I doubt you're short of it yourself.'

This is veering away from the point. Joey tries to steer the conversation back on course. He's not here to get into a slanging match with Roxy – he's here in Oscar's best interests, and because he can't take this amount of emotional blackmail from his son when Martina needs him more than ever to stay strong and stable for her.

'Look, it's not even the money. It's not this one incident, Roxy – it's everything. He's goin' down a dangerous path if he keeps up with actin' like this. He won't listen to me, but someone needs to talk to 'im, Roxy. Tell him he can't keep goin' through life this way. I've seen what it does to people…'

He has to pause, a little bit of bile has come up his throat, thinking of Shifty and his cousin's horrific end.

'…and…it's not a path he wants to go down, Roxy. Really, it isn't. He's gonna get himself into a lot o' trouble if he's not careful.'

'And what d'you want _me_ to do about it, Joey?'

'_You – are – his – mother!_' Joey can't hide his exasperation now; it pours out of him. 'God, you're hopeless, Roxy – wouldn't his wellbeing be the first thing you thought of?! Don't tell me it hasn't even _crossed your mind_ to sit him down and tell him he's got to get his act together – for _his own sake?!_'

Martina had gone ballistic at Annabelle the other day when she caught her selling shares again, and while Joey had cringed at the time, he'd realised once you penetrated the layers of Martina's frustration, there was a deep concern underneath. She wants Belle to think of her future, to work towards something stable, to keep herself out of things that could get her into trouble. It would never occur to her to simply let Belle go off down a dangerous path – at least without warning her not to. His own Mam, too, had constantly reprimanded them, chided them, disciplined them – with the aim of helping them to better themselves, to navigate life the best they could. She'd nearly lost her mind when Adrian and Billy, heavily influenced by Shifty, had ended up with a load of stolen videos – not just because of what they'd done, but because she wanted better for them. And Joey honestly can't imagine any mother sitting idly by, uncaring, not even _trying_ to intervene, while their son digs themselves into deeper holes.

Except the living proof is sitting in front of him.

'I get it, Joey – you want to palm all this off on me, so you can swan around pretendin' to care and not having to handle things when the going gets rough…'

'_My wife is_ _unwell,'_ Joey lets the disdain flow from his vocal chords now. Can't hide it. 'She needs me. She's _suffering_. I don't have time to play your mind games – or his.'

Roxy gives him a look he knows all too well.

'You said she was fine a minute ago. How can someone be fine _and_ unwell?'

Joey hisses. God, she hangs on every word he says, looking for something to jump on, pick at, drag him down with.

'Funny,' Roxy goes on, 'last time you couldn't be bothered with Oscar it was your Jack who was supposedly on death's door.'

He ignores this comment.

'I need to be there for my wife. I need to _be there_, Roxy. I can't be dealin' with Oscar doin' this to me all the time.'

'Shame you didn't think that way when _we_ were married. Could have been something wonderful.'

Joey shuts his eyes, breathes slowly through his nose. She's really getting up his goat.

'I did think that way. You just never accepted there could be more than one person in me life. It was you, Roxy, who didn't give us enough of a chance. Who leapt into bed with some slick git because I had the audacity to want to love you _and_ me family – the way _normal people do_.'

He's getting nowhere. Roxy clearly has no interest in standing united with him as a parent to help Oscar properly. She seems all too intent on watching him destroy his life and then bleed her ex-lovers dry. It's almost as if he's a weapon to her – and though he desperately wants to help his son get back on track, that's just not something he can do alone right now. And if she won't help, there's nothing for it – he'll have to learn the hard way, while the consequences are still quite small, and Joey will have to hope that knocks some sense into him.

He gets up.

'Good day to you,' he gives her his coldest, pseudo-polite smile, strides to the door as nonchalantly as he can manage.

'I never stopped loving you, Joey.'

He pauses, turns back around.

'Me, or the idea of havin' some poor sod around who always took you back no matter what?'

'It's not easy being alone, Joey.'

'You think I don't know that?! I spent a year and a half after we divorced, Roxy, barely even existing. Struggling just to get through each day.'

'Oh, is that why you married again so quickly? I couldn't believe it when you told me. I thought you must have been making her up to get back at me. There was no way, I thought, that someone who professed to love me as ardently as you did could have moved on in the blink of an eye like that. _You're in my guts_, you told me. For all that was supposedly true, you meet someone else and you're in love with her straight away, ready to commit to _marriage_ with her straight away!'

'Nearly three years later.'

'Is that all it took to erase everything we had from your mind?'

Joey laughs bitterly. 'You were the one havin' an affair, Roxy. Being _blatant _about it, mind you. I don't think you need tell _me_ about forgettin' what we had. That seemed to slip your mind while we were still _married._'

'And you know why I did that? Because what we had was never enough for you, Joey! Because your family were always at the front of your mind, Joey! Always in the way, always tainting what we had! And now my son is learning, like his mother before him, that Joey Boswell's uncut umbilical cord comes before all else.'

'Mam's not even _involved_ in this!'

'She doesn't have to be. There's always an understudy ready to take her place. Someone else in the Boswell chain of command always slotting in between you and us. And as for that _wife_ of yours, well, you married your mother, didn't you? I saw that as soon as I met Martina. She's another mam to boss you around and wipe your nose and tie your shoes and tell you that you mustn't stray too far from the nest…'

Roxy's responding as she always does – hitting where it hurts. Fighting dirty. Attacking the people he holds dear. She's been doing it enough this evening – and Joey's just not in the mood to play along.

'A little tip from me, Roxy? Don't ever go givin' Oscar relationship advice. The way you go on, it's no wonder you've never been able to hold down a fella.'

The look of outrage on her face is enough to brighten Joey's mood. He's failed his mission, he's deserted Martina in the dead of night to go on a fool's errand, he's got nowhere in his attempts to make Oscar see sense and ends up sitting in his car for a couple of hours just brooding.

And yet seeing Roxy so furious makes him smile most of the way home.

* * *

Joey knows he's in for it the minute he sets foot in the door. The atmosphere is _too_ cheerful. It's unnatural.

Martina and Annabelle are eating breakfast in the kitchen, the former not dressed yet, the latter having customised her school uniform to the point it's barely recognisable. Both of them look up and smile when he walks in, Martina's not reaching her eyes, Belle's wicked in a way that denotes she knows something he doesn't.

'Morning, love,' Martina's voice is pure melted honey, and Joey feels a chill run through him, because those falsely dulcet tones mean only one thing.

She's waiting until Belle's out of earshot.

And then she's going to kill him.

'Greetings.' He slides sheepishly into his chair. Martina has made him tea; he sips it warily, heart thumping. He knows it was a foolish idea to take off without telling her. Knows she wasn't in the best state yesterday, that, for all he knows, she still might not be.

He stares at his plate. Martina's made him toast as well; he can barely bring himself to do more than pick it up and put it back down, his eyes firmly on it. He doesn't look at her. Daren't. He's aware the guilt on his face speaks volumes.

The inevitable comes though, as soon as Annabelle's got her last mouthful in. His reckoning is nigh.

'It's about time you were headin' off to school, sweetheart.' Martina's falsetto is even more pronounced.

Belle smirks. 'Watch it, Dad – I know that tone of voice. You're in for it.'

'_Annabelle!_' Martina warns. '_Go to school.'_ She's smiling still, but it's terrifying. Like a viper, poised to strike.

'Yeah, yeah,' Belle gets up lazily (only teenagers can make even physical activity look lazy; it astounds Joey), carelessly slings her satchel over her shoulder, gives them both another facetious smirk before she walks out.

Joey's stomach drops as soon as the last flash of red hair is out of sight. Oh, God, this is not going to go well. Still, he walks sheepishly into the parlour after them both, looks pathetically at the open door, hoping somehow he can sink into the floor, or perhaps his wife will have a miraculous bout of amnesia and he'll be spared the horror and overwhelming guilt of what's about to come. He's let her down. He deserves whatever wrath is on its way – and that makes it even worse.

Martina shuts the door after Belle, and the false smile drops as she rounds on him.

'_Where the bloody hell have you been?!'_

Joey sucks in air through his teeth. 'I –'

'I asked for your help, Joey – I needed you – and you disappeared in the middle of the night?!'

'Job?' Joey's aware how unconvincing his voice is. Too high-pitched. His 'lying voice', as Martina calls it.

'Don't you fob me off, Mister Boswell. I know what you've got slated this week – and you 'ad nothing on last night!'

'_How_ do you always manage to know what jobs I've got?!'

'JOEY!' Martina is absolutely livid. It's boiling out of her; he can practically see steam rising from her skin.

He swallows and comes out with it, knowing she won't like what he has to say.

'Oscar was in prison. He wanted bailin' out.'

'Oh, _Gooooodddd_!' Joey has never heard such an exasperated noise come out of Martina – and that's saying something, given she expresses exasperation at one thing or another nearly every day.

She flops backwards across the sofa, letting out a shriek through her teeth.

'I didn't pay it, Martina! That's not why I went there – if you'd let me finish explainin' just what happened…'

'_How_ many times, Joey?! He is not interested in bein' any sort of son to you! He's just out for whatever he can get! And you blunder into his trap every time!'

The thread of Joey's patience snaps.

'And you're innocent of that, are you? You've never let someone take you for everythin' you've got?'

'_Don't you try to turn this around on – '_

' – all those times Shifty came callin', took what he wanted and left you in pain just slipped your mind, did they?'

Martina sits up abruptly, the shock on her face as powerful, her countenance as deeply shaken as if he'd reached over and slapped her.

'Shifty is _dead_,' she says, her voice hovering somewhere between pain and venom. 'And you 'ave the _gall_ to –'

'To what? To not pretend what he did to you doesn't matter anymore just because he snuffed it? I loved Shifty as well, Martina, God knows every _day_ I wish he didn't die, but I'm not fool enough to think that suddenly erases what he did to you. And it's because you won't let yourself come to terms with what happened, you haven't learned yet to make the distinction between –'

' – _Don't_,' Martina says, eyes practically shooting flames, 'say any more, Joey. Just _don't-say-any-more.'_

She gets up off the sofa, walks out the front door and shuts it behind her so softly it's somehow worse than if she'd slammed it.

_You daft dumbo, _Joey kicks himself. _What did you have to go and say that for, son?!_

She's not exactly doing well, and mere hours after he was declaring to Roxy he'd do whatever it took to help Martina, he's gone and set her miles back in her recovery with his bloody stupid slip-up.

Thank God he hadn't gone one worse and brought up Roger. He was on the verge of adding her brother's name to his comeback in his careless rage.

The damage, had he actually done it, might have been irreparable.

* * *

He's lying on their bed, allowing himself to wallow in a sea of remorse and guilt, fiddling with the little gift tag from Martina's bedside drawer when the bedroom door opens. She hasn't been gone more than five minutes; he'd been anticipating more time to work out a good apology, a proper pledge to do better by her that he could offer her when she got back. Joey goes rigid, frozen in place, tensing for round two and another tidal wave of anger, wondering what he can say, do, to make things better. He's crossed a line and he knows it. Hurt her in the midst of her own tempestuous attempts to heal.

To his surprise, no anger comes. He keeps very still and quiet as he feels the bed shift, and then she's shuffled up behind him, her arm creeping around his waist, tightening around him.

'Don't pretend to be asleep. I know you're not.'

Her touch is shamefully soft and gentle, given he's just torn another huge hole in her mental state. Burning with guilt, he rolls over, brushes her hair off her face.

'That was quick. Where'd you go?'

'The end of the road and back,' Martina smiles ruefully.

'Top marks for that protest.'

'Well, there wasn't a bus for another half an hour, and….' Martina gestures down at herself, still in her dressing gown and slippers. 'I didn't think it through, obviously.'

Joey laughs lightly, although he keeps his guard up, aware he might still be in trouble.

'If it makes you feel any better,' he says cautiously, 'I didn't go up there to bail Oscar out, you know. I went to see Roxy.'

Martina lifts her head.

'Thought you could make her talk sense into her son, did yer?'

'Summat like that. I shouldn't have bothered. She's not interested in doin' the right thing. Only in movin' people around like chess pieces and makin' a mess of their lives.'

'Not much more you can do, then.' She sounds incredibly calm, given he's just let on he was visiting his ex-wife. She settles down again, resting her head on her arm, her other hand reaching up to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt.

'If she wants to keep encouragin' Oscar to be this way, nothing you say to 'im is gonna make a difference. Not while she's in his ear. Not when she's got such a convenient _pawn_ to hurt yer with while keepin' her own hands clean.'

'You don't mind I went?'

She shrugs. 'Why should I? It's about bloody time. Probably something you should have tried in the first place.'

'Can't you try and be even a _little_ bit jealous?! God, I remember back in the day you couldn't even handle one of the other girls on the counter servin' me. _I'll do this one_, you used to say, and you'd shove 'er away from me. Where _has_ that possessiveness gone, eh?'

'I hate to be the bearer of bad news for your poor inflated ego, but I don't think it was quite like that, Mister Boswell,' he's got a smirk out of her, if nothing else. 'And I know you. You rarely let go of people but once you finally do…that's it. There's no havin' them back. They're done for.'

There's a tinge of insecurity to her words Joey doesn't miss.

'I won't let you go, you know,' he whispers, pulling her closer. 'You'll have to dispose of me body in the river if you wanna see the back of me. Haven't I said that before? Haven't I?'

'It's not as if I've been…well…how much further can I push you, Joey? I do worry.'

'To the moon and back, sweetheart,' Joey murmurs into her hair. 'To the moon and back.'

'And if I go beyond that?'

'To the sun. To the…' Joey makes a gesture with his hands, 'to the ends of the universe.'

He reaches down to her chin, tilts her face up. 'I told you. I'm not goin' anywhere. We're gonna get through this, okay? Together.'

He pauses for emphasis.

'We're _fam-i-ly_, Martina. That's just how it is.'

'I've tried, you know,' she says. 'To come to terms with Shifty. I've tried and I can't.'

'I know, sweetheart. I shouldn't have had a go at yer about him like that.'

'I was thinking about him even before you brought 'im up. I just don't know what to do about him. I never have.'

'Have you talked to Doctor Daker about it?'

Martina huffs out a sigh. 'He asked me what I would've said to him if I could.'

'And what would you have said?'

Martina looks away from him. 'I don't know. I need to clear me head, Joey. It's such a mess in 'ere…I can't work out what to do about anything, it's all too tangled up... I'm…gettin' a bit desperate.'

'It's only the beginning, you know. No need to feel desperation just yet.'

She rolls her eyes. 'It's not the beginning of anything, Joey. I've been feelin' this way on and off since I was twenty. P'raps even younger, when I think about it. I don't even really remember being all that happy as a child, truth be told. After this many years, I just…I …just thought by now there'd be…'

'I know,' Joey says, even though she hasn't managed to complete her sentiment.

Martina's quiet, her eyes flickering up towards the ceiling.

'I'm gonna do it,' she says finally.

She doesn't need to elaborate; Joey knows what she's talking about.

'Just because of this?!'

'I'd more or less made up me mind last night. I just wanted reassurance it was the right thing. That's why I was so angry with you – I woke up and you weren't here…I needed your support.'

Joey feels a breath leave his body he didn't know he was holding. Unsure himself whether this is good news, he presses his mouth to her forehead, rubs her shoulder.

'D'you think that's the right thing?'

'If it's what you want.' Joey's voice isn't judgemental. He really doesn't know what to think of this decision – he had hoped, personally, she'd stick therapy out for a bit longer before trying this – but it's hers, and she's trying to do something which might help herself, and Joey can't begrudge her that. Not at all. He'll back her in anything which involves trying to take care of herself for once.

Martina exhales through her nose.

'You get it for me.'

'Okay. I'll go this afternoon on the way back from Jack's.' He doesn't even question this, doesn't push her into admitting she's afraid to do it herself, and for that, he can tell, Martina is grateful. She nods at him, her eyes not meeting his.

'Eh, tell you what,' he says, pulling them both into a sitting position. 'Why don't you get dressed and we'll go somewhere nice this morning? Just you and me. I promised, didn't I, that I'd motivate you to enjoy yourself a bit more.'

'All right,' Martina sighs, and then pauses, considers something. 'In a minute.'

'In a minute?' Joey frowns until she kisses him, the reason for her hesitation suddenly clear.

'Sure?' he murmurs against her mouth.

'Stop askin' that,' she growls. 'It does me 'ead in. It goes without sayin', Mister Boswell.'

'As you wish,' Joey says, kissing her again. 'But it might be more than a minute, then.'

Her eyes glint with that wickedness he loves, that he always misses when she's in a down mood.

'Don't kid yourself.'

'Oh, that does it,' Joey grins back, pulling her flush against him. 'You're askin' for it now.'

They don't end up going anywhere that morning.


	9. Time stoops to no man's lure

**And more things go wrong for Martina. I promise if you bear with, things will get better. I've nearly finished writing this whole thing (there are only 3 more chapters after this one) and I promise, there are some good things to come. But before they come, she's got to work her way through a lot of things, and she and Joey have to be tried and tested in a few ways. **

**Housekeeping for this chapter: As always, I don't own Bread, original Joey (and Aveline) in mind, and so on. Martina's experiences with various treatments are not meant to convey any sort of advice or message, are just fictional and are a mix of first hand experience and research (having a partner who used to be a pharmacist has been quite helpful in this respect. The antidepressants described from here on out are real, but I've taken the names out so I don't get sued, but I know what she's on at what particular point in the story). This won't be a major focus of the fic, just one among the many things she's dealing with alongside Roger, Shifty, her job, Joey's stupidity, etc. In a nutshell: THIS IS JUST A STORY. **

* * *

**VIII**

**Time stoops to no man's lure**

'We thank Thee, O Father, for our lives, our families and our health…'

His Mam's prayer seems a tad ironic, Joey thinks as he sits there, hands clasped, Martina's little box burning a hole in his pocket. It's strange having a normal meal with his mother and his siblings after the events of last night. Joey's still tired, still a bit overwhelmed, still a bit worried about Martina's chosen course of action, and yet he puts his best face on it, gives a winning smile whenever someone's head turns in his direction.

'Eh – I was readin' the other day,' Billy begins, and the suppressed groans in the air are palpable. Billy reading anything spells trouble.

'They might be bringin' back that Enterprise Allowance Scheme they used to have – or summat similar, anyway. You know the one that helped me set up me sandwich business and helped our Joey with the organic business?'

'So?' The word is barely recognisable, given Jack's mouth is full of potato. Joey shoots him a warning look – he's supposed to be careful about his eating, lest there be a repeat of his earlier disaster.

'So I could get it, couldn't I? When they do do it. It could help me with me sandwich business – I've 'ad two staff leave in the last month. I could use the money to find new ones, couldn't I? I'll go down the Jobcentre and ask Martina to give me an 'and.'

Despite the fact that Billy's just spouted a load of rubbish, his face betrays the smugness of someone who believes they've had a good idea.

Except for the fact that he hasn't. Billy's sandwich business is doing surprisingly well. He's got two shop locations which Martina had helped him get set up, taking time out of her schedule to talk him through paperwork and all the legal requirements, helping him reach a point where he no longer needed to claim.

And yet Billy still doesn't seem to understand he no longer needs to call the DWP every time he has an issue. He's self-sufficient now. His business has a good turnover, a good profit margin. He's hired an accountant part time, a few competent brains to sort out the payroll and the paperwork and competent pairs of hands to craft the sandwiches. And still, if ever he gets even a sniff of a problem, in his eyes, the entire thing is going to pieces and he's 'not ready' to deal with it.

And that's notwithstanding the fact that Martina…

'Er –' Joey hesitates. 'I don't think that's gonna be possible, son.' He doesn't want to reveal too much of Martina's plight. Still, he supposes they'd find out sooner or later, even if he didn't bring it up. None of them have a lot to do with the DWP anymore, save Billy, but there has been the odd occasion when one of them is eligible for something, and they've pestered her about it, pleading 'family' in a bid to have her drop everything and see to them (to be fair to her, she usually did, albeit grudgingly).

'Why not?' Billy ploughs on tactlessly. 'She always helps me, doesn't she?'

'Well, for starters,' Joey's smile is hurting his face; it's disingenuous, 'you've got a well-established business, now, haven't you? Those sorts of schemes are for…well, _new_ businesses. And anyway, Martina's not there anymore, so perhaps instead you should just…'

The clatter of forks on plates is deafening. Joey had tried to skim over it, hide it in amongst the rest of his speech, but to no avail. They've picked up on it and snatched it out of the conversation before he can get any further.

'Eh?'

'She what?'

Jack is the only one who doesn't look surprised.

'Well, you know,' Joey assumes his cheeriest face, 'time for a change, isn't it? She's been there thirty years – can't stay in one place all your life, can you? There are a lot of horizons waitin' for us all out there…you miss them if you stay still, don't you?'

The blank looks he's getting indicate his attempts to deflect aren't working. The news is too surprising. Even Nellie seems astounded. Joey doesn't really blame any of them. Picturing Martina in any sort of context that didn't involve a counter had taken them a long time; he'd been with her a good couple of years before they had actually started to see her as a real person. Divorcing her completely from the dole will be an enormous adjustment on all their parts.

'Is she retirin'?' Aveline pipes up. 'I can't stand people who retire early! Oswald's talkin' about retirin'… I don't know why he wants to be an old man before 'is time! People work til they're nearly seventy these days!'

'She's not retiring,' Joey says gently, aware that even the thought of it has struck a nerve with his sister. She doesn't like any sort of reminder that she's getting older, even if that reminder comes from a completely unrelated event in one of her siblings' lives. 'She's just takin' a bit of time to work out what she's gonna do next.'

'I'd love to retire,' Billy says as if he hasn't heard. 'I'd buy one of those motorised scooter things you see people drive down the precinct when they do their shoppin'. I'd ride around the town on it. You don't even 'ave to walk!'

Jack makes a disgusted face.

'What d'you want one of them for? They're degradin'! It's like wearin' a sign saying _my body's too knackered to run. _And your body's in near-mint condition, seein' as how you manage to palm off any hard labour onto anyone else in a three-mile radius.'

'Why're they degradin'? If you don't have to put the extra effort in, why would you bother?'

'Our Grandad would be turnin' in his grave at the thought of that. 'e kept on leggin' it up the street until his legs gave out just to prove he could still do it. And 'is legacy's gonna be a lazy lit'le gremlin who buys a mobility scooter because he can't be bothered to get off his arse.'

'It's efficient, that's what it is – and –'

'_Bill-y!_' Joey can feel his cheek twitch with irritation at the tangent. Living with Martina, who likes to keep discussions straightforward and on-topic, he's no longer as patient with the tangled circles of his siblings' dinner conversations as he used to be.

'_Bill,_' Billy corrects crossly, but he shuts his gob all the same.

'Martina's _not retiring_,' Joey insists. 'She's just…she just needs…'

How to explain it, without giving too much away? Martina's depression is hers to disclose; he'd promised her he wouldn't go divulging it to all and sundry.

'A Sabbatical,' Adrian cuts in, his face serene in that way that indicates he's being knowledgeable. 'That's what it's called. A Sabbatical.'

Billy's brow furrows. 'What's that mean?'

'It means she's takin' time away from her job to expand her horizons.'

He's met with a few blank looks.

'Well, a lot of people do that, don't they? A lot of people in my field – ' spoken with a note of pride, even though he hasn't finished his degree yet and therefore hasn't started really building a reputation in _his field_, '—take time off to develop their skills. It helps build a better career.'

'Sounds like skivin' to me,' Billy says. ' 'minds me of when you were _redundant_, and you spent all that time moanin' about not havin' a job and developin' your bonking skills with that Carmen in the –'

'All right, all right, do we need this to turn into fisticuffs over what word you use for it? She just needs a change, that's all!' Joey insists, fed up now. 'Shriekin' _next_ day after day can be a bit dull, can't it? That sort of repetition isn't good for the soul. So why – don't—we just – _leave her to it_, okay? She'll work something out for herself soon enough.'

His family still look a bit dumbfounded at the revelation, but they nod non-committally and turn slowly back to their tea.

'And _no pestering her about allowance schemes – _okay, sunshine?_'_ Joey points a warning finger at Billy, who's looking dangerously thoughtful.

'Eh, I'm not ready for all this! Runnin' a successful business on me own!'

Jack frowns. 'Our Joey helped you start your business. Mam 'elped it keep goin' all those years when you couldn't be arsed to make your own sandwiches. Martina set you up with a premises and got all the legal stuff sorted, that girlfriend you 'ad at the time helped find you your staff – what 'ave you done other than turn up once in a while and get in the way? Must be the first business that's run itself without its owner layin' a hand on it.'

'And what about you, then?! You've only gorra job 'cause Leonora's dad –'

And then they're doing what the Boswells do best – bickering – and thankfully the subject is dropped. Joey returns his attention to his plate, and to the strange psychosomatic burning of the box in his pocket.

* * *

Martina has never been scared of anything medical before. She's had her stomach pumped, her appendix out, has had an epidural and a Caesarean, and if having a needle in your spine and your stomach cut open don't faze her, nothing should – but this is much more long-term.

She can't bring herself to go to the chemist with Joey to pick up the prescription. She leaves the box on the kitchen counter for a few days, stares at it whenever she's in the room with it, but she can't bring herself to even touch it just yet.

Joey doesn't ask her about it, doesn't comment.

It's another two weeks before she touches the box.

* * *

'Are you sure you want to, sweetheart?'

Martina looks down at the tablet in her hand.

'I want this to stop.'

He knows she does, but despite her insistence on this, she's frightened. She's trembling. Joey takes her other hand, kisses her fingers.

'It's not gonna stop just like that, they said. It's gonna take persistence. And it doesn't mean you get out of therapy either, before you start gettin' that idea into your brain. Your appointment's booked for two o'clock Wednesday, and you'll be keepin' it if I have to carry you in there in a sack.'

'I _know_, Joey.'

Funny, it was once her lecturing him about missing his appointments, when he used to fob off his scheduled times to sign-on then turn up hours later. Strange how the roles are reversed now.

Joey hands her the glass of water.

'You won't think less of me?'

Joey puts his hands on her hips, pulling her backwards against him.

'You know I won't. There's nothin' wrong with doin' what you feel you need to.'

Martina raises her hand slightly, pauses, lowers it.

'You don't have to, you know. No-one's gonna make you.'

Martina looks back at him.

'Hold me.'

'I am.'

'More than _that_.'

He obliges, wrapping his arms around her waist, clasping his hands together; a safety belt around her, like in his dream with Shifty, only he's not doing this to restrain her but to give her the security and reassurance she desperately craves at this moment.

Martina leans her head back against his chest, takes a deep breath.

She puts the capsule in her mouth, takes a sip of water. And swallows.

They stand there in silence.

The kitchen clock ticks, and outside a few pigeons warble and quarrel with each other, and a few leaves flutter past in the breeze, and in the distance, a few cars rumble off down the road. The world keeps on going, keeps on being the same as it always was. Joey wasn't expecting the earth to suddenly shake or a ray of light to suddenly break out from the clouds, but the sheer normalcy of everything around him at pivotal moments never ceases to amaze him.

He angles his head down and around until he gets a glimpse of her face.

Martina's eyes are closed.

'What d'you feel?'

Her eyes snap open, and Joey can't read them.

And then she furrows her brow.

'Nothing.'

He laughs then, he can't help it, and he turns her around to face him and presses her into his chest. Martina's arms encircle him, and she's shuddering as they clutch each other, whether from tears or laughter he isn't sure, but he holds on nonetheless.

'How long, d'you think?' she murmurs against his chest.

'Until you notice something?'

He feels her nod.

'I don't know. I don't know. Just give it time.'

* * *

It's one o'clock, and, contrary to his normal reasons for being awake at this time of night, most of which involve shady little money-earners, Joey hasn't been out on a job at all.

He's just thinking—about Oscar, about himself, about Martina, about everything—and while he thinks, losing one train of thought as it crashes into another, his wife is thrashing this way and that, tangling the blankets, making unholy rustling noises and disrupting him every time his mind starts to get on track.

'What's wrong with you, then? You got fleas?'

He switches on the lamp in time to get the tail-end of her withering look.

Martina has never been a particularly good sleeper, always, _always_ gets disturbed when he comes in in the middle of the night, can be kept up for hours just because a bird makes _one_ hooting noise, and Lord have mercy on the pillows and mattress if a tap is left to drip, because they will inevitably take the brunt (sometimes Joey too, although he's managed to clue himself in over the years as to when he's about to get thwomped with a pillow, and he's fairly good at dodging) until someone has got out of bed and seen to the offending plumbing. But she usually does settle down, even if she's simply twilighting, drifting on the edge of a very shallow sleep, or if she is simply lying still only to keep up a pretence of being at rest. This non-stop tossing and turning has been going on since half past ten this evening. The very second Joey turned out the lamp she was at it, turning over every two seconds and growling, thumping down her pillows then fluffing them up then rinsing and repeating, and he wonders where she's got the energy from to keep it up for this long.

'I can't _sleep_.' She flops onto her back, flings her arms wide. The back of her hand smacks lightly against his collarbone.

'Yeah, I noticed that. What's wrong, sweetheart?' He reaches for her, enormously pleased when she immediately slides over and settles snugly under his arm. It's like courting Martina all over again, this, trying to get her to trust him, trying to assure her he's not going to harm her, the feelings of elation when she begins to realise that.

'I don't know. I just can't…I can't...' She shifts against him, shaking her hand vigorously until Joey winces as he hears her wrist click. A yawn. 'How'm I supposed to _sleep_ like this?'

Joey runs his hand across her forehead, placing a feather-light kiss there.

'Try,' he says gently. 'Just try not to think about it, okay?' He tightens his arms around her, holding her against his chest so she can't thrash. It's a chilly night but she's sweating, which makes Joey frown.

'Shut yer eyes.' He switches off the lamp and lies back down, keeping a tight grasp on her.

It takes all of about five seconds before Martina starts to wriggle.

Joey pins her legs with one of his. 'Stay still.'

To her credit she tries, but she can't keep it up for more than a few seconds at a time. She positions her head against his shoulder, then moves it down to his chest, she wraps her arm around his neck, then his waist, then shoves it underneath herself.

'No, it's no good,' she shoves at him and wrenches herself free. She's flopped onto her back again, massaging her chin. 'Me jaw feels strange and all.'

'In what way?'

'Like I've just ground me teeth.'

'Have you?'

She looks at him like he's grown two heads. 'Oh, yeah, and I just felt out pointin' it out for a laugh. No, I 'aven't, else I wouldn't have brought it up, would I?!'

'Okay, okay, calm down,' Joey reaches for her again.

'I know they said this would 'appen,' Martina says grumpily, 'but it's doing me 'ead in.'

'It might be all right tomorrow, sweetheart. It might be all right tomorrow.'

* * *

It is not all right tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that.

Martina wakes with what feels like a hangover, tries to stand and finds the room spinning – and it's nothing but downhill from there.

She struggles through a session at Doctor Daker's where she can barely concentrate on the words, the disarray in her head and the pain in her jaw and an overwhelming bout of nausea consuming nearly all vestiges of her mind.

'Is your mouth all right?' he asks eventually, giving up on trying to explain anything to her when it becomes clear she's unable to pay attention.

'No,' Martina croaks, rubbing her jaw vigorously. 'It's not.'

'Do you want to come back another day?' Doctor Daker asks gently. 'When you're feeling a bit more yourself?'

'No,' Martina mutters again, folding her arms. She can't bring herself to focus properly, but she's certainly not subjecting herself to more bloody sessions than she has to. She sits stubbornly for the rest of the hour, not taking in a word, making no pretence of even trying to. He's annoyingly, implacably calm, which she supposes comes with the job, but Martina is aware she's not making things easy. How can she, though, when her head is spinning at a dizzying rate?

'Is it…' she brings herself to ask just as she's about to open the door to leave. She hesitates, turns back to him. 'Is it supposed to be like this?'

'There's no such thing as _supposed to_,' he says, and if her mouth didn't hurt so much, she'd give him a piece of her mind for that comment. 'People don't always react the same way. But if you're worried, go back to your doctor.'

'A fat lot of help you are,' Martina mutters, deliberately loud enough that she knows he can hear, and shuts the door hard behind her.

* * *

Joey misses calls from Oscar on Sunday, the following Tuesday and twice on Thursday.

His mobile starts hollering again today, and Joey's heart sinks when he sees the caller's name flash up.

Joey debates answering, remembers Roxy's smug face the other night, glances across and sees Martina lying on the sofa, groaning, with her hand across her forehead and her arm across her middle.

_I can't, son. I can't_.

He rejects the call.

* * *

'_Six weeks?!'_ Martina fairly explodes when she goes back to the doctor to ask about it. She feels Joey's hands on her shoulders.

'This is a long-term treatment, Mrs Boswell. You need to think further ahead, and once they settle down…'

'I can't _live_ like this for six weeks!'

'If it gets worse, come back and see me,' is all he says, and Martina leaves feeling deflated.

'Well he was no help at all either,' she grumbles as they leave.

'Six weeks isn't forever, sweetheart,' Joey says, rubbing her shoulder.

Martina glares at him. 'It might as well be.'

* * *

Joey had thought at first she was exaggerating – she tends to do that more than she cares to admit – but it doesn't take long to realise Martina is genuinely feeling battered by this. She complains more frequently – and while Martina never passes up an opportunity for a good complain, it's not usually to this extent – barely eats, seems constantly flushed, starts to falter in her resolve to persist.

Her hand hesitates over the packet at breakfast one morning. And then Joey sees it fall to the table, her head almost imperceptibly shaking.

'Take it.'

Martina gives him a filthy look.

'_Take it,'_ Joey repeats through his teeth, pushing the packet towards her.

'What are you gonna do? Stick it down me throat if I don't?'

'You can't go missin' them, sweetheart. You'll do yourself a mischief if you're not consistent with it.'

'Apart from the one they're doin' me already, you mean?'

And so they dance to these steps for another week or so, Martina's mood getting fouler, her complaints louder.

He tries to be strong for her, adapt his Eldest Boswell role to fit what she's going through. Rubs her shoulder and reassures her again and again that she needs to be patient.

But when Martina suffers a panic attack out of nowhere, the likes of nothing Joey's ever seen, all thoughts of pushing her to persist disappear, and he holds her for an hour until it subsides. When she lies on him complaining of nausea so strong she doesn't want to move, and massaging her sore jaw, worse than ever now, he wonders if it's _really_ supposed to be this hard to get used to. And when he finds her on the floor the next day, sobbing uncontrollably about just wanting to end it all, he's had enough. He swoops in, picks her up, cradles her to his chest, gently murmuring reassurances into the top of her head, carries her to his car and drives her straight back to the doctor.

* * *

Turns out she wasn't wrong. She's 'overly sensitive' to the medication she's been given. Some of the side effects she's been having are common, but some aren't. It's not supposed to be as bad as all this. It's a relief to hear she was right although Martina's enraged she went through all that for nothing, and even more so that she had to practically reach breaking point before anyone believed her. The doctor tells her to stop taking it (thank God), gives her a prescription for something else (not so pleasing) and sends her on her way.

Martina scrunches the new prescription to hell and back for a few weeks. The last one was horrific, and she only had a week of it. She doesn't want to touch anything else.

* * *

'Hello, yes?'

'Joey – this has got to stop.'

Joey leaps out of his seat, practically flinging his mobile across the room.

'_How did you get this number?!_'

Annabelle is watching him from the other armchair, eyes narrowed. Martina is in bed, having chucked the towel in at around seven, and Belle's been capitalising on the freedom from her Mam's watchful eye to do a couple of dodgies with her friends over the phone – but the second Joey's panic kicks in, she's suddenly, surprisingly focussed, looking as if she's going to spring into action.

'Joey,' Roxy's seductive voice is deeper than it used to be, crackly through the phone, and if he's honest, the most horrible sound he's heard in a long time, because he just doesn't need this right now. Joey feels his heart plummet. She's stepped into the ring herself, unsatisfied with watching his and Oscar's emotional battle from the sidelines. She must be bored, to be getting involved in his drama – either that, or his appearance at her door a couple of weeks ago shook her up more than she cared to admit. She's never liked him having the last word. And though Joey is long past being ensnared by her, he's not in the mood to cop some emotional damage.

'Don't be like that. Oscar is me son, you know.'

'Where is he?' Joey can't help himself. 'Did you—'

'Yes,' she says, and that's a relief in one way. Oscar may need to learn – and soon – that there are consequences for his actions, but Joey doesn't want to see him incarcerated, whatever the reason.

'I had to, didn't I?' Roxy continues. '

'Look, I told yer – I've got things at home I need to sort out.'

'Oh, yeah – Jocasta Junior's not well and the world must be put on hold while Joey Boswell's nuclear family has a meltdown—yet again. You shouldn't have told Oscar you thought of him as a son, Joey. You've never been able to commit to people – really, truly commit to them, have you? Not when the family's around. I'm surprised Martina got as far as down the aisle with you, let alone as far as running your life – or did your Mam choose her for you, a Nellie-Boswell approved arranged bride to carry on her legacy when she's gone – '

Joey only realises Roxy's monologue is no longer hitting his brain, that Belle has come up beside him and prised the phone from his ear when he hears her speak.

'GrEEeeetings!'

In spite of his shock, Joey's face contorts into a smile, a silent laugh escaping his lips.

'Er – you'll have to forgive me father. He's under a bit of stress, you see. Me Mam's unwell, me uncle's recovering from traumatic surgery, and he's tryin' to sort them out, all the while bein' harassed by a bastard and his cow of a mother who've made a game of seein' who can make 'is head explode first. Now. If you could pack up your manipulative little gob and push off, it would be _greatly appreciated. Thank you._'

And ends the call.

'_Annabelle_,' Joey chides weakly.

'Well, somebody 'ad to, didn't they?'

'And what gives you the right to talk to people like that?' Not that Joey minds, but he knows Martina wouldn't approve, and in her absence, he has to try and be a bit more severe.

'I learned from the best, didn't I?'

He can't really refute that.

'And _anyway, _what was I supposed to do? Sit back and watch 'em chop your balls off?'

'_Watch it, I'm warnin' you_…'

She's unfazed.

'Why let them torture yer? You're not just lettin' them, you're handing them the thumbcrews! And while you're bein' a masochist over there, what about Mam? You're just addin' problems to yer life you don't need, when we've got a real one, haven't we? Nothing's working. She needs us.'

'God, when did you become me?'

'I'm not you. I'm the new, improved version.' Belle grins, and then her face turns serious. 'Just block the number, Dad. Just block the number. Sometimes that's all you can do.'

'You're right.'

'I know I'm right.'

He holds his hand out for his mobile, blocks the number that called him.

He pauses. Belle's watching him, expectation in her eyes. And he knows what she's thinking.

And he knows she's right.

He scrolls through his contacts til he finds Oscar's number.

And blocks it as well.

'Thank God for you, sweetheart. Thank God for you.'

He crushes Annabelle to his chest, burying his face in the top of her head, drawing a bit of his daughter's strength, marvelling that, at this moment, it's him and his Mam all over again. He'd better not push her too hard, he thinks. He'd been stressed out in his younger days when all the family turned to him for every little problem when he was no longer coping with his own – and yet there has always been something in him that's compelled him to reach out and help, comfort, support. Belle seems to have inherited that.

'Eh – not me hair.'

Joey shifts his head back slightly.

'Dad, geroooofff.' Belle's tolerance of this show of affection seems to have reached its limit. 'It's common sense, that's all. Don't go soppy on me.'

'When did you get so wise, then?'

Belle quirks an eyebrow. 'I was born that way.'

'Oh?'

And then she's grinning, and God, she looks so much like Martina it almost brings tears of love to Joey's eyes, and at the same time it reminds him so much of himself at that age he's blown away.

'I'm a Boswell.'

And no, that doesn't really make sense, but it reminds Joey of his younger self, the uneasy leader of the pack at Kelsall Street in the days after his Dad left, exuding a confidence he never really felt inside, pouring forth similar sentiments, stirring family pride in his brothers and sisters until it became more than sentiment; it became the glue that held them together when they needed it. _Go in there, son. Don't be humble. You're a Boswell_.

'I've got wisdom in me guts. And that means knowin' when me family needs me to talk some sense into their 'eads!' And then she sits down, her cheeriness suddenly crumbling.

'If only I could sort out Mam's problems so easily.'

Joey grimaces at that. Whether she's aware of it or not, Belle's already starting to fall into his ways, trying to reach out to pick up anyone in her family she sees falling. He'll need to warn her, he knows, that you need to try and balance all that out, else you explode in the end. Exhibit A: the carnage he'd left behind when he eloped with Roxy, a spur-of-the-moment decision made off the back of an eruption of pent-up anger, born of years of putting his own needs on hold. He'll have a good chat with her about it later – right now, he's aware he'd only look like a hypocrite after what's just transpired. And the portion of Martina in Belle can't stand hypocrisy.

'She'll be all right, Belle,' he says instead. Joey doesn't really believe his own words, but it's all he can manage. 'We'll stick together, and we'll pull her through it.'

'Do us a favour, won't yer, Dad?' The twinkle in Belle's eyes is gone; she's dropped her facetious mask long enough for Joey to see the concern beneath.

'What favour?'

Annabelle blinks, eyes suddenly wet.

'Pull 'er hard, won't yer? She's not budging.'

* * *

'You know what our Belle said tonight?'

'She's 'ad ten pounds off me this morning already,' Martina murmurs groggily as he climbs into bed beside her. She's barely coherent; voice slurred, on the verge of a sleep he's aware he may have just ruined. She opens her eyes, looks at him, but they're unfocussed.

Joey scrutinises her. She can barely move her face into an expression, let alone really put any feeling into the jibe about Annabelle. She's tired – if not physically, mentally. He knows he's still in a bit of trouble as well – she's hurt he didn't believe her when she said the side effects were worse than you're supposed to have. It's another little crack they'll need to heal, work on together, Joey thinks with a sinking heart.

'Not that,' he says (he did give Belle fifteen this afternoon, but he's not going to let on about that to Martina). 'She's afraid, sweetheart.'

Martina lifts her head. 'What of?'

'You know what of. She's seen you try things. She's seen them not work. She's seen you retreat – and that's not you. And she knows it's not.'

'Oh, God. It's a Boswell offensive on both sides.'

'Don't be like that. We care, that's all.'

'Yeah.' It sounds unconvincing, deliberately so.

'Look, I know I didn't listen to yer about the side effects – and I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should've done. I just thought –'

'You just thought, in your neverending wisdom, that your interpretation of things is always the right one. As usual, Joey Boswell's expert brain cannot be wrong.'

_Come on, Martina. Don't do this_.

'Look –'

'If you want to show you care, you know what you can do, Mister Boswell?'

Joey half-sits up. 'Anything.'

'You can shut that gob of yours and let me get some sleep. Four hours it's taken me, I nearly drop off and you come in to assault me with another heartrending chapter of the Boswell Book of Bullshit.'

Oh, God. She's not taking this seriously – or not letting herself take it seriously. Joey holds her against him, quietly despairing.

* * *

Taking nothing for a while is a blessed relief. She wasn't on her first prescription long enough to have withdrawals, according to the doctor, and so she simply stops taking them, throws them away with relish. Ignores the new ones as much as humanly possible, even going so far as hiding them in the back of the wardrobe so she doesn't have to see them glaring at her.

She still hasn't made up her mind about trying any more antidepressants, nor about what she's going to do at all, really, and so she takes a bit of time to refocus, calm herself down, re-establish a sense of normal, spend a bit of time with her family to cheer herself up. Martina runs a few errands with Joey during the day, visits Jack with him, does what she can in the evenings to strike a balance between keeping Belle on the straight and narrow and enjoying her company.

She's sitting with Annabelle in the parlour now, her daughter's presence helping her feel a bit more grounded when nothing else will.

'You all right, Mam?' Belle peers at her.

'Just…an 'eadache, that's all.' It's not untrue. Martina does have a headache – has had one for most of the day. She just left out the daze of rage and confusion playing havoc with her mind, disappointment her first lot of antidepressants reacted so badly with her system mingling with apprehension at trying anything new and irritation because she's seeing Doctor Daker again tomorrow, and honestly, how long can she go on paying lip service to this futility?

'P'raps this'll help ya.'

Martina barely has time to flinch before Belle is shoving earphones against the side of her head, and a horrible sound feeds through her brain.

'What part of _I've got an 'eadache_ did you not understand?'

'Yeah, but what d'you _think, _though?'

Annabelle seems to have far too much of a vested interest in Martina's opinion on the din in her ears, and she can't work out why for a moment, until it suddenly clicks. She's not doing this to torment Martina. She's trying to show her something important.

Martina realises it's music she's written herself, put together using software on her computer that she's sure Belle downloaded illegally. And though she doesn't particularly like it, and though she should probably admonish her daughter for her use of pirated programs to make it and the fact that Belle's forcing it on her when her head's already pounding, she's hit with a surge of pride.

Belle's got ambition. She's created something. She's got talents. And seeing, once again, that Belle has evaded that sense of hopelessness that has followed Martina all her life might be the best thing that's happened to her for several weeks.

'It does help, love,' she says gently, touching Annabelle's hand. 'It does.'

Hard luck that this prompts Belle to spend an hour showing her everything she's done so far, compounding Martina's headache and leaving her with a ringing in her ears that stays with her for another hour after that.

The thrum of pride for her daughter stays with her, though. And it's worth all the headaches in the world.

* * *

'You know, in this life we're supposed to live _and_ learn, and I've seen time and time again that things can – and will – get worse.' Martina's lips purse into a grim line. She may not have the power in this particular situation, on the wrong side of a counter in an annoyingly cheery room, but her default is still to dust off her DHSS-lady voice.

'And yet somehow it still surprises me just how far you can plumb the depths of despair…only to find you're not even halfway down the pit yet.'

Doctor Daker sighs at her. It hasn't been a good session today, most of it spent discussing her horrific encounter with antidepressants, going in a circle of indecisiveness about whether to try the new one, and wheeling back to – as their conversations usually do – Martina's ever-growing conviction that she is not destined to be happy. He seems insistent on arguing with her on this one, trying to get her to change her mind – and it's doing her head in.

'Remember what we talked about last week? Your feelings don't dictate reality.'

It sounds like she's being admonished.

'Would've been nice to remind a few people I used to work with of that,' she mutters.

'Are you changing the subject?'

'Are you supposed to be helping me?' Martina retorts. 'Or d'you get some strange satisfaction from tellin' me off?'

He sighs. 'I'll let you be the judge of that. In the meantime, don't forget what I asked you to think about.'

She already has; she wasn't listening. His bloody exercises achieve nothing but a surge of irritation, and she can get that just about anywhere. Still, she mutters her assent, confirms next week's appointment, resigns herself to more time on the new treadmill that is her life now. Get up for work, remember she has no job to go to, despair a bit, get dragged to therapy, come home, listen to Joey and Belle being devious, get no sleep.

Martina pauses, raises her eyes to him, her voice uncertain when she speaks.

'How long does all this go on?'

He looks back, a concern and compassion in his eyes she's not sure she likes.

'I mean,' Martina struggles to clarify, 'all of it. Gettin' through these sessions and…the rest of it…how long before I notice anything?'

'That's not something I can predict. Some people only need a few months. For others, it's years.'

'Oh, God. _Years_.'

Between hearing that and the side effects of the medication, Martina feels her hope getting smaller by the second. Nothing's working. She might as well just bloody give up.

* * *

It's Friday night (not that that means a lot to Joey, not working regular hours), Belle's staying with a friend after some daft concert they're going to, and he's been planning to go over to Kelsall Street tonight, stay over, do some repainting for his Mam on Saturday. Make a weekend of it. He's played it out in his head a few times, knows how it'll go.

Something doesn't sit quite right, though.

Joey knows Martina's had the alone time marked on a calendar somewhere with a big, red circle for months. That initially, she'd been looking forward to doing what she always does when she gets a bit of Boswell-free time: soaking in a bath by herself, getting a bit of cleaning done without him or Belle messing it up, dropping the pretence that she hates Fat Edgar and reading in bed with the dog curled up next to her.

But he looks at her now and Joey just can't see this ending well. She can't be alone. Not at the moment.

'Come 'ed,' he reaches down and grabs her hand, pulls her off the sofa. 'I'm not leavin' you here on your lonesome. You're coming with.'

'Your Mam's only expecting you,' she protests feebly.

'Doesn't matter, that, does it? It's not a formal invite, sweetheart. You don't have to ring ahead and book for fam-i-ly, do yer? It'll be no sweat.'

'Edgar –'

'Edgar'll live. Belle's given him a high rise dinner – he could live off that for a week,' he takes hold of her other wrist, propels her to the stairs. 'Get your things together.'

'I 'ad _plans_, you know,' she grumbles when she comes down the stairs, overnight case in her hands – but her posture, her eyes, her very countenance say differently. She's relieved. Martina doesn't like to let on that she needs anyone – but right now, Joey knows, she needs him more than ever.

* * *

They have a peaceful dinner at his Mam's – excluding a few rants from Billy, who's popped over from next door on the cadge, as he usually does. Nellie seems oddly accepting of Martina's presence here, surprisingly not bothered she's missing out on her-and-Joey time, gives him knowing looks every now and then, which confuse Joey no end.

He finds out why, though, when they get a moment alone.

Billy's taken Martina next door to show her his new crow – he has a habit of bringing the most horrific mangled birds home with him (Annabelle has never recovered from The Owl, the most prominent feature in her childhood nightmares) and then forcing his family to appreciate them. Joey's always been an animal lover, but there are some creatures he prefers to care about from afar and not get too close to, particularly if they have a tendency to hack a chunk out of your finger. And though Joey suspects his younger brother might bring up his bloody sandwich scheme as well as subjecting her to the crow, he's glad Martina's off with him – doing something with herself, taking her mind off things, still with someone.

'She's not coping, is she?' Nellie says. 'Martina.'

'How d'you mean?'

'She's got a haunted look about her,' his Mam's eyes are knowing. 'Like…life has trodden on her lately.'

Joey starts, surprised his Mam would come out with something like this, relieved his wife isn't here to hear it so he can unburden himself in earnest.

'How'd…how'd you know that?'

'I have a sixth sense, Joey, love,' Nellie says, squeezing his hand. 'You'll soon discover with Annabelle – it doesn't matter how old your children get, you always know when something's not quite right. And I could see in you t'other day something wasn't right, when you tried to fob us off about Martina leaving the Jobcentre – that you were worried about her. Frightened for her. And bringing her today because you didn't want to leave her – you only have to take one look at her to see why. She looks at you as if you're the only thing holding her up. As if she's not sure about her place in the world anymore. And for somebody who normally goes through life with a look about them as if they'd freeze to death anyone who got in their way, that's a clear sign something's gone wrong.'

Oh, God, Nellie's perceptiveness is on another level sometimes. And it's so welcome, so relieving that Joey feels his eyes fill with tears against his will.

'Come on, spill it all out, love. You can't box all your problems in forever, you know. It's not natural. We're human beings, not locked cases.'

'It was killing her, Mam.' His voice is a child's voice – small, soft, fearful – in the presence of his Mam, calm at the moment and offering warmth and advice the way she used to before his Dad left, Joey shrugs off the bravado he's been wearing like a coat, clutches at the opportunity for some support of his own.

'I mean – it was _actually killing her_. She'd come home battered…if not _actually_ bruised, emotionally; it was wearing 'er down and I used to wonder if…' he swallows, 'if I'd wake up and find her dead. It was crushing her from the inside out, workin' there.'

'I'm not surprised. It's filled with a lot of bad sorts, that Jobcentre. Deviants and bullies and juvenile delinquents and Godless rogues…_tarts_ with five children by four different fellas coming to moan about the world while collecting their single parent benefits…'

Joey grins in spite of himself. 'And us. It's full of people like us. Shakin' life's moneybox until enough comes out to feed their struggling, united families.'

'Just shows, you, doesn't it. Doesn't matter how thick a skin you grow, we're all just human flesh underneath. Enough cuts from that place would make anybody bleed. Even if they pretend to be frosty enough to ignore it all.'

'Thing is, it's not just that, either. She's goin' through…a really bad patch, Mam. She needs lookin' after but…she won't _let herself_ be looked after.'

He doesn't want to bring up Oscar's little side dramas, how they're adding to the situation. He knows Nellie's always been supportive of him when it comes to Oscar, had been the one to pick up the pieces when he returned home after his divorce from Roxy, heart in pieces and his son gone from his life – but it just doesn't seem right to bring it up now. Not when he's got Martina and their own child, not when he's trying desperately to be what his own family need, and not go to pieces at his own powerlessness. Even Nellie, who comes close to thinking he can do no wrong, would surely chastise him for putting Martina and Belle through that.

'I don't…' he hesitates. 'What can I say, Mam? I don't know what to do about her.'

'You're her husband. You'd better think about what you're going to do, hadn't you?'

'But that's just it. She's fightin' everything we try, and…and nothing's working, and I just worry…' he swallows, clears his throat of phlegm.

'And I just worry,' he articulates more slowly, clearly, trying to keep a cool head, 'that if something doesn't work soon…she might go the same way Shifty did.' His voice is barely a whisper.

'What, kill herself?' Nellie's voice, by comparison, could probably be heard by the whole street, her hands a blur as they make the Sign of the Cross.

Joey makes frantic shushing noises with his hands, and she thankfully turns the volume down a bit.

'She's not gonna kill 'erself, love,' his Mam says, more gently this time, 'she might be a lot of things, Martina. She's sarky and aggressive when she wants to be, and it could do her a world of good to smile a bit more often…but she's not selfish at heart. That Shifty, on the other hand… was a _selfish, thieving Irish ruffian!_ The minute that boy was conceived he was a bad lot. He…' she must notice Joey's face contort, because she abruptly stops herself mid-rant and calms again.

'I know you were fond of him, Joey. I know. There are just some things, as a mother, you can't forgive. Seeing you walk through Hell and back after what he did to himself is one of those. If anyone left our Belle in that position, you'd soon see. You turn into a spider and your pincers come out when someone threatens your young.'

Joey puts his hand over hers, appreciative of her concern even if she's going somewhat off-topic.

'I didn't just hear from them that Shifty died, you know. I saw 'im. I saw 'im dead.' The only person he's ever told this to before is Martina. He's never let on to the rest of the family, afraid it'd be too much for them. He still remembers Nellie's earth-shattering scream, unable to be suppressed even in church, when he'd told her he owed twenty thousand pounds to the tax man. And this is far worse, far more horrifying. He can't keep it in now, though. His voice cracks. 'Someone had to identify him, didn't they. And…'

'Oh, Joey.' Nellie leans over, surprisingly agile for her age, and cradles his head against her. 'Oh, love…why didn't you tell us?'

'I didn't wanna worry you,' he admits, a tear slipping out. He'd spent years trying to get over this, and for the most part, he has. But now, when he's afraid for Martina, when it's been brought back to the forefront of his mind, the wound is just as fresh, just as brutal as the day he'd stood there surveying Shifty's body, struggling not to faint from the shock, go to pieces in a mixture of rage, grief and heartbreak or collapse from the guilt that he didn't do enough, that just maybe confronting Shifty had pushed him in this direction.

'You all had enough to worry about without shouldering that as well. But…' a shaky breath to help get it out, 'it's always in the back of my mind, somewhere. And then in me dreams at night I see that metal drawer and…it's her lyin' in there, and…' he can't go on.

Nellie's hand is squeezing his so forcefully he thinks it might come off.

'It's not gonna happen, Joey! It's not!'

He says nothing and the grip on his hand gets even tighter.

'She keeps sayin' it's too much…she might give up…'

'But she hasn't, love! She hasn't.' Nellie pats his arm. 'She's holding onto you for dear life, Joey.'

His Mam's observation startles Joey. He'd been thinking Martina was withdrawing from him again, angry and untrusting after the side effects debacle. Then again, she's here with him now, and perhaps…

Nellie cuts into his thoughts, delivering one final piece of wisdom.

'And she wouldn't be doing that if she'd given up, would she?'

* * *

A thin shard of light bleeds through the curtains into his Mam's spare room. They lie quietly together, on the verge of sleep, Joey filled with a sense of tranquillity he hasn't had for a while, even if he's cold and slightly uncomfortable. Martina being significantly shorter than him means she's managed to steal their shared hot water bottle, hiking it too high for him to get any benefit from it, and so Joey's feet freeze while his calves get far too warm. Still, she's here with him. She's safe.

'Sweetheart?' he asks through the darkness.

'Mm?' Martina's head jerks up, and Joey realises to his surprise she's actually been dozing off. He doesn't know if this is her body finally unwinding after being messed around, the result of being at his Mam's, where she can lay her responsibilities aside for a night, or just a fluke. But it's good to see, all the same.

He'd wanted to tell her what Nellie had said to him, let her know he's not going to let go of her, say _something_ to impart a bit of the wisdom, the comfort he received tonight. But she's comfortable and relaxed, secure and safe enough to let herself drift towards sleep, and Joey doesn't want to spoil that.

'I love you,' he whispers instead, bestowing a kiss on her temple.

'Mmf. You too,' Martina slurs, and then her breathing evens out.

Joey holds her close.

'We're gonna get through this, Martina,' he whispers into her hair, even though she can't hear it. 'We're gonna get through this.'

* * *

**I know that was a bit of a down chapter, but we'll start to get to some better stuff next chapter if you can bear with. Hope everyone is doing okay and staying safe. **


	10. Red strays of ruined springs

**Bit of a different format to this one, looking at a gradual progression over a longer period of time, and some nice moments among all the clouds. Again, I don't own Bread, original Joey, this is just a story with no message to take from it.**

**Anyway, we're getting closer to the end of this story. Martina has a few things she needs to overcome and she's going to try in this chapter. Enjoy.**

* * *

**IX**

**Red strays of ruined springs**

The next couple of months are a nightmare of dazing, confusing, horrific proportions. She tries different medications, different dosages, different techniques in therapy, every time feeling a little bit more hopelessness set in.

Her second attempt has her crawling into bed for whole days at a time. The third compounds her insomnia, and after a few days with little more than two hours of sleep at a time, she's grumpier and more snappish than ever. The fourth messes with her digestion, her appetite and her sex drive (Joey takes that one even harder than she does). None of them are as bad as her horrific first foray into antidepressants, but they still leave her miserable, and she considers chucking in the towel more than once, just accepting this is how she is and nothing is going to change that.

And in the meantime, Joey keeps dragging her to therapy, which she's come to dread as if she's being led to her own execution. It's supposed to help. And yet Martina hates it with every fibre of her being. She's wasted months of her life now, missing out on nearly the entirety of Belle's summer holidays and the chance to spend any time together because she's battling her mind _and_ her body.

By the time she brings home another new box she's given up imagining anything is ever going to make a difference. She takes it, resigned, catalogues the dry mouth, occasional tremors and buzzing in her head that emerge, concedes that she can live with these things more than anything else so far and tries just one more time.

* * *

It's not even that she notices a difference. She doesn't particularly have an enormous revelation. It takes the prolonged absence of the first few weeks' side effects for her to even notice they're gone, and it makes her realise, as though detached, that some of the horrific thoughts that typically make a home in her mind are gone too.

Well. Not _gone _gone. But she can't quite reach them. They're up on a shelf, and a yard or two of clear path is immediately in front of her, offering her a pleasant little space to walk in before those thoughts drop back down again.

She sits out on the front lawn, just breathing the air, just observing it. Just taking in the bland clarity that's sneaked up on her.

She doesn't feel all that much different. There's no sense of joy, as she'd sort of imagined. Just a fleeting sense of…ordinariness. It's comforting in its unremarkability. As if, for just a little while, the world isn't crumbling, just turning.

'Whatcha doin' out here, then?'

She hears Joey's voice before she registers his presence, his mouth against her ear. Joey squats down beside her, puts a hand on her shoulder.

'There's dew on this grass, you know. You're gonna get that dress wet.'

Too late; she's been sitting in the damp for half an hour already. 'I'll change, then.'

'You okay?' There's a concern in Joey's voice again, one that's coloured their interactions nearly every day for the past few months. He fusses over her something horrible. Now she knows why Aveline got fed up; he'll be slinging a whistle round her neck next.

'I was just thinking,' she replies absently.

'What about?'

How can she explain it? She doesn't really understand it herself. Everything is still there, and yet it's not killing her. She's still worried about so many things, and yet they don't completely fill her vision. This could go away at any minute; she doesn't know. She doesn't know a lot about how this works.

'Just the fact that, for once in me life, there's no part of me telling me I'm done for and everything I'm doing is pointless.' She's not sure she's getting it across very well, but he's giving her an encouraging smile, so she goes on. 'It's nice not to hear that.'

She feels Joey settle on the grass beside her, pulling her to him so she's leaning against his chest.

'Wanna get your precious leather keks wet, do yer?'

'Well, you see, that's the one of the upsides of leather,' Joey gestures to his leather trousers as he settles her against them, 'it's waterproof.'

'That's one counterargument to _outdated,_ _sweaty, difficult to clean and inappropriate for a man your age_,' Martina teases. She leans her head back against his shoulder, shuts her eyes. Joey's held her a lot recently, sometimes for comfort, other times with force, trying to protect her from doing something she'll regret, but this occasion is particularly nice. It's just affection, plain and simple.

'Outdated, eh? So says you, Miss _I-Can't-Use-My-Mobile-No-Matter-How-Many-Times-My-Patient-Husband-Shows-Me.'_

Martina chuckles but doesn't attempt to reply. She's not sure how long this bubble lasts, but she doesn't want to disrupt it too much.

They sit for a while, the silence companionable rather than unpleasant.

'This one better, then?' Joey asks after a few moments.

Martina knows what he means without any further elaboration. She shrugs.

'Mm, jury's still out.'

It's early days yet, and she's not sure what this calmness means. It's not so much feeling good as simply the absence of feeling terrible, and she doesn't know how long it's even going to last.

But it's something.

* * *

Martina has stretches of calm. And then she has the odd black day, and Joey begins to worry again until all of a sudden, a glimmer of a good mood comes back out through the clouds. It's nice, seeing her settled a lot more of the time, still unsure of herself but a little bit further back from the cliff's edge. She'll sink back down into her little swamp of misery, but she'll have a logical conversation with him about it (or at least a row both parties can actually follow), and it'll subside in a while. They won't chase each other in nonsensical circles, if Martina tries to retreat into her head she'll grudgingly let Joey follow her in there and coax her back out again. He wouldn't call this _great_, but it's _better_ – and better can always be built on. It at least quells his fear she'll just chuck it in and take herself out one of these days.

Problem is, now she's…not fantastic but above water, now Jack is also more or less his old self and nothing in his life is at the life-or-death stage, he's got space in his brain to think. And when space clears itself in his brain, Joey's thoughts always turn to what (or whom) he's lost. Blocking Oscar's number with Annabelle's help has been liberating. It's offered him the finality he needs – and yet little things remind him: flashes of memory, photos he unwittingly comes across when organising his things, glimpses of small lads and their parents when he goes into town – of the fact that for a very brief period in his life, he had another child. And he never will again. He's in mourning, he supposes. It's not as if he's grieving a death, he reminds himself…but boy, does it feel like that. The Oscar he knew is dead and yet somewhere out there a version of him, mutated beyond recognition, still walks the earth.

Belle and Martina are putting up new curtains in the parlour (Martina never upgrades anything, and yet for some reason she'd decided to out of nowhere, which he supposes might be a positive step) and he really should be helping.

He sits in the kitchen instead, moping, unconsciously cutting a swathe through a cake Martina had made on the weekend, barely tasting it.

Never has the temptation been so strong – it always was with Roxy as well, back in the day. He'd make a firm resolution not to talk to her, things would start to go well in his life and it was then – when he had things in hand, when he was temporarily on top of his family's crises – that he'd miss her and he'd ring. And it's now, while Martina's somewhat improving (not drastically, but he's not terrified of leaving her alone for five minutes and that's a start) that his hand hovers over his mobile, and a rebellious thought asks him how bad it would really be just to flick a text through to Oscar to see if he's okay.

_Come on, son. You can't. This has to end. It has to die. For everyone's sake. Just leave it alone._

'Er – is there a reason you've devoured half that cake without considering anyone else in this household?'

Joey jumps. He hadn't noticed Martina standing over him, one hand on her hip, and though his usual reaction when he's caught in the act is to assume a sheepish smile, he can't manage it.

'Just – er – bit peckish, that's all.'

'We're eating in an hour.' She tilts her head to one side. 'What's goin' on?'

'Going on, sweetheart?'

'Don't play that one. You only stuff yer gob when you're stressed, or when it's Christmas.' She arches one eyebrow. 'And it's _October_.'

'October, is it?' Joey tries to deflect. Martina hates hearing about Oscar; she's not going to be pleased. 'Need to start thinkin' about your birthday, then, don't we?'

'_No,'_ Martina says defensively. Joey's tried over the years to get her to think of her birthday as a nice day, rather than just the anniversary of when Roger abandoned her, but it's never worked. The closest he's ever got is a giving her a bunch of flowers on her fortieth – and even then he'd had to deal with near-hysterical tears before he could coax her into accepting them. He'd wondered if this year, now she's had the closure she needed, things would be different – apparently not. He goes on anyway, just to tease her.

'Just a small thing, you know, two hundred people…'

Martina glares at him.

'Don't try and get on me nerves because you think you can avoid this conversation. What's goin' on, Joey?'

'Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing.'

Joey can feel his cheek throbbing. His Dad always used to say he couldn't keep a lie in his mouth. Joey's managed over the years to keep it in check for the most part, settle his facial expressions so he can deceive his loved ones more effectively when it's important.

When it comes to matters of his own heart, though, all the old nervous tics come flooding back. And Martina, irritatingly perceptive as she is, has memorised them.

'_Joey._ What's goin' on?'

'You're not gonna like it.'

'I don't like it already, Mister Boswell. Go on.'

'It's Oscar.' The words are accompanied by a sigh, Joey feeling just by breathing the words that he's breathing his last.

'I see.' Martina's voice is unfathomable. It gives him the sense of sitting opposite her, waiting for her to give him the green light or reject his claim, unsure until the very last second which way she'd swing.

He hears a scrape as she pulls up the chair next to him. It's like the old days, this. Martina finding him distraught over something, taking up her place beside him, lending him an ear and a shoulder to cry on. It reminds him of when she'd first come back into his life, when their friendship was tentative and always on the knife-edge of dissolving, Martina's stubborn intent to keep her distance from him clashing with her instincts to draw closer. She'd found him one day, sitting in a café with his elbow in his food, devastated over a row with his family, and it had sparked something within her to come and comfort him. And the simple fact of her presence, her attempts to take care of him when she saw him in that state, had cheered Joey more than anything else. It had reminded him why he was pursuing her, the antidote to a few frustrating days thinking he'd better chuck it in, that she was being too aloof, her barriers too strong. It had reassured him. Ever since then, she's been someone to turn to when it all gets too much. And though she's still battling her own demons, the fact that she's reaching for him now, placing her arms around him, pressing lips against his cheek give Joey a sense of hope and reassurance he's missed.

'I know, Martina – I know it's useless. I should just give up – and I know it hurts you, and it hurts Belle, but – there's just something in me that can't leave well alone. When he says he needs me, I fall for it every time. I just keep hopin' maybe one day, somehow he might want just to…see me and know me and have what…what me and me dad had before he left…'

'Sweetheart,' Martina says softly, her hands combing through his hair, 'I know that. But you need to face up to it – if you took the money out of the equation, d'you think you'd hear from him at all?'

It's with a heavy heart he answers her, but the answer comes without even thinking. Without even hesitating.

'No.'

'If Roxy wasn't puttin' 'im up to this,' she says, still so gentle Joey can barely believe it, 'd'you think he'd have bothered with you? He's got hundreds of stepdads to pester. But who does Roxy _know_ without a doubt loves him no matter what? _You_.'

She's being incredibly supportive. Calling him _sweetheart,_ even (he can count on one hand the number of times she's called him _sweetheart_), listening, being gently, calmly logical. Joey doesn't know what he's done to deserve this, but he's overwhelmed with gratitude.

'And if you wanna keep jumpin' at his command, love, by all means, go on. See where it gets yer. But I can tell you now, all you'll end up with is an empty wallet and an even emptier heart.'

Joey lets his face slowly slide down into his hands.

'You're right. God, you're right. You've told me, Belle's told me, I know it in me brain…it's just me guts. They can't accept logic even when it's starin' me in the face.'

'I know it's 'ard,' she says, and Joey could swear she's said this to him before, once upon a time. 'I've been there.'

She tightens her arms around him. 'I've been there.'

Sometimes, Joey realises, he doesn't give her enough credit. He stresses her out, with his insistence on letting Oscar in, and yet a good part of her frustration is born from sympathy. She doesn't want to see this happen to him. Her Roger was her undoing in a lot of ways. He tore great big holes in her life – and Shifty as well, and yet her love for them was such she forgave them repeatedly, at a heavy cost to herself. She might possibly be the only one, Joey reflects, who can understand what this is like for him.

Joey rests his head against her shoulder, breathing in the smell of her perfume and the skin of her neck, drinking in the strength she's offering him. And it's as he's slowly feeling the lump in his chest settle, not completely gone but dulled by her common sense, that he realises.

She's taken charge of the situation. It's been a while since she's done that. She's been comforting him, she's been calm and gentle but still her stern, sensible self, not taking any of his nonsense, and it's more like she used to be, back in the old days—the stronger Martina, able to take a situation in hand despite fear or pain, able to sort out the most troublesome of claimants (including him), able to manage a situation efficiently. It's _her_. Something sparks inside him.

'And that's enough _cake_,' she snaps, pulling it away from him, shattering the moment although she's still sounding unbelievably like herself.

'Oh, sweetheart,' Joey grins, clamping his fingers around the plate and pulling it back just to see her glare. 'What's it for if not to be eaten?'

'It's for _everyone_ to eat over a _period of time_, not for you to shovel down yer gob in one sitting. You do realise, Mister Boswell, that two members of your immediate family have had heart attacks?!'

Ooh. She's got a point. Joey relinquishes the cake, and Martina puts it in a tin and bears it away. He watches her disappear with it (hiding it, no doubt, though she's not good at hiding things and he always finds them), thinks about what she said to him, and wonders.

* * *

Joey always hesitates when it comes to leaving Martina alone these days, especially after some of the horrors she's been through lately, particularly with antidepressants that didn't agree with her.

But it's the third Thursday of the month, his brothers' pub quiz night, and he's missed the last two – and what's more, this is the first one Jack's been cleared to come to by Leonora since his heart attack (with restrictions – he's only allowed one drink, and Joey has been designated enforcer of this rule). Not only that, they lost to Yizzel and his mate's team last time, from what he heard, and that just isn't on. He has to go; he can't let the side down. There's family honour at stake here. Sort of.

'You sure you'll be okay, sweetheart?' he asks one last time, and is treated to an eye-roll.

'I'll take care of her,' Belle drawls from the other room.

'How's that _essay_ coming, Annabelle?' Martina shoots a warning call over her shoulder. She turns back to Joey, kisses him firmly and pushes him towards the door. 'Enjoy yourself, love. Don't drive home drunk. And _no cheating_.'

'Would I do such a thing? Would I?'

Martina simply shuts the door in his face.

Joey frets and worries about her all the way there, but his mind is soon wiped of these thoughts by the situation at hand.

It's great seeing his brothers again. He's never stopped missing those happy, triumphant days when they were a little team together, an unstoppable force of nature, him with his macho suavity, Jack blundering in with a crate of tomatoes, Adrian clutching his briefcase, Billy's teenage hormones ruling his head, all of them coming together for better or worse. It's nice to still get little flashes of that.

'Greetings!' he calls triumphantly as he approaches their table. He's met with claps on the back, grins, a _why d'you still say greetings?_ from Billy that he hears nearly every time he sees him, and he slides into his seat feeling a little flicker of happiness after a stressful few months. It's funny, he observes, they're sitting in the same positions they would have been at home in the old days, round Nellie's dinner table. Creatures of habit indeed.

They've already got a round on the table; Joey picks up his glass and puts it appreciatively to his lips.

'So, here we all are then,' he chirrups, 'ready to take on the world and come out on top, a fam-i-ly united…'

'Why're _you_ in such a good mood, then?' Jack demands. For all that, though, he's smiling cheekily, the first time, Joey thinks, he's seen his brother look genuinely cheery in a long time. He must be well and truly feeling his old self.

'Oh, just appreciatin' the joys in life, that's all,' Joey replies enigmatically.

'Leonora's in a bit of a mood with me,' Jack announces to nobody in particular. 'She worries too much, she does. She's even asked bloody Joey to _supervise_ me! Never mind, eh—what she doesn't know won't hurt her. When the cat's away, as they say…'

Billy raises his head, eager to get in with the slaggings-off, not to mention flaunt the fact that he has a new girlfriend.

'Ellen's in a mood wi' me an' all. _Why are you goin' out tonight, Bill_? She says. _We were supposed to be going to the pictures tonight,_ she says. _You can't just break plans for a pub quiz_, she says. Why do women always take everything in life you wanna do, and then…say you can't?'

'Well, Irenee wasn't bothered,' Adrian says smugly. 'She does everything I ask.'

Joey's face contorts into a smirk as he thinks back to one of Martina's recent psychologist visits, which had resulted in a slanging match between them on the street. He's never been one for submissive girls. To each their own, he supposes.

'Good for you, son,' he snickers, taking a sip of his Stella Artois. 'Good for you.'

'Yeah, we all know Martina's got _you_ on a leash,' Jack's in a great mood tonight, and his affectionate ribbing is taking every opportunity to make an appearance. Joey grins back at him.

'Oh – and whose Missus was it again that asked his older brother to babysit him?'

'I 'ad a major operation. What's your excuse?'

Billy cackles loudly – sounds like he's been imbibing even before the others got here, and the evening is going well, a perfect mix of family unity and just a touch of irresponsibility that always lifts Joey's mood.

There are two blokes running the event tonight, and between them they dole out a right mixed bag of questions. The first bloke, someone Joey's run into a couple of times on jobs, hands out the easier ones – the second, much to everyone's annoyance, is Adrian's mate Neil (a member of his thankfully-now-extinct poetry society, Carmen's husband and a more annoying clone of Adrian, all head in the clouds and faux-intellectualism).

'Oh, God. We're screwed.' Jack takes one look at him and then an enormous swig of his drink. 'Sod only 'avin' one, I'm not gonna be much use on the brains trust front for this one.'

'_Jack_,' Joey warns as his brother moves to get up. '_Just – one._'

'Aw 'ey – what's two gonna do to me that one won't?'

'Two could easily become _three_,' Joey says through his teeth. 'Then four, then five…one is your limit. And you're gonna stick to it. Okay?'

Jack looks about to protest, but they're starting, and he grudgingly puts his glass down and leans in to help them. Yizzel and his mate are looking insufferable after last week's victory, and this may be a crap set of questions, but a win's still a win, and they all want it.

Joey's thankful they've got Adrian – Neil's questions about literature and ancient Greek philosophers are not his forte. The other bloke's good, old-fashioned general knowledge and sport questions are ones he can easily knock down; between them they've got a good chance. To boot, he sees Charles grit his teeth as they go through the answers for the first round, give Yizzel a shove. Somehow, though, they still end the first round in a tie.

'Come on,' he urges his brothers, wringing his hands. 'We've got to up our game if we're gonna wipe the floor with them. Adrian, what's the matter with you? I thought this stuff was right up your alley! Pull yourself together, son! There's fam-i-ly pride to be maintained 'ere!'

Round Two is much the same. Joey takes note of Yizzel's mate's reactions, feeling just a touch smug when he and his brothers know something Yizzel's lot clearly don't. The questions are all over the place, though, an odd mix of Heaven-knows-what.

Billy's not even trying to pull his weight, instead drinking himself away from consciousness and playing with a stack of beer mats on the table.

'Eh – focus, son,' Joey yanks the mats away from him. 'We're neck and neck. We need a good score this round to smash them – okay?'

'You and Adrian's the only ones 'oo know the answers anyway!'

'Steady on, sunshine. We don't know what's comin' yet. There could be some great sandwich questions for all we know.'

Not likely, but Joey prides himself on being a pretty good peacemaker.

'Question Seventeen,' Neil slurs. He sounds a bit tipsy. 'Bit o' science. In psychology, the initials CBT stand for what?'

Joey's eyebrows jump. Something about that rings a bell.

Heads automatically turn towards Adrian.

'I…don't know,' he shrugs apologetically.

Joey frowns, thinking back. He _knows_ Martina's mentioned it before. Knows she's _doing_ it, in fact.

'Could Be…_Things_,' Billy announces tipsily, then his eyes light up and he points at the paper. 'Put that down, Adrian. _Could – Be – Things.'_

'Or it could be Cut Billy's Throat,' Jack leans menacingly across the table. 'A well-known term to describe the murder of daft gits who give daft answers and lose us the round.'

'No, no, cut it, both of yer,' Joey inserts his arm between them. 'It's Cognition something… I _know it is!_ I've 'eard it before.'

He considers. It's a bad idea, what he's thinking. Not technically allowed – though all they'd win is a free round of drinks anyway. The idea of thrashing everyone tonight – especially bloody Yizzel and Charles – is too appealing, though. Even if it is by dishonest means.

He leaps from his seat.

'Where you goin'?' Jack's giving him an odd look.

'The bog,' Joey lies. He's out of the room before anyone can question him further, and he hovers in the passage outside the gents', fumbling with his mobile. Technically it's cheating, what he's doing – but he justifies his somewhat devious behaviour with the fact that he _almost_ knows the answer, just needs a quick memory refresher.

'What?' Martina demands when she answers the phone.

'Martina,' Joey's out of breath; he leans against the wall, trying to grab a lungful of oxygen, unsure whether he's breathless from the moment or from sprinting out here (if the latter, he really needs to get out and run a bit more, he thinks. He can't be this unfit.) 'I need – help, I…'

'What's wrong, love?' her voice turns to concern. 'What happened?'

'No – no – ' Joey hastens to reassure. 'Everything's fine – Martina, what's that thing Doctor Daker does with you that you hate?'

'_What?'_ She's incredulous.

'You know,' he gestures frantically with his free hand, trying to articulate, 'you think it's daft.'

'Mindfulness?' Martina sounds as if she thinks he's gone mad. He doesn't blame her. It's a strange thing for him to be ringing her about.

'No, not that…' Joey's getting impatient now, though. They've probably moved onto the next question. 'Cognition something…'

'Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?' she still sounds confused out of her mind. 'Why?'

'Ah! That's it!' Joey slaps his hand against the doorframe in recognition. 'Cheers!'

'_What_ is going on, Mister Boswell?!' Martina insists before he can hang up. 'You ring me out of nowhere to ask about me therapy?_ What are you up to?_'

'It was one of the questions – I have to go, sweetheart.'

'_I warned you about cheating, Mister Bos – '_

He hangs up mid-chastisement and sprints back into the room.

'Where have you been?! You've missed two questions, Joey!' Adrian looks irritated, a sure sign he hasn't known the answer to something.

'Just the bog, I told yer.' Joey slides their paper towards himself, picks up his pen. Question 17 is still blank; he swirls _Cognitive Behavioural Therapy_ onto the line and pushes it back into the middle of the table.

'How did you know that?! Have you been sneaking off to look up the answers?! Oh,_ Joey_ – how could you?!'

'I just had a sudden flashback, that was all,' Joey says blithely.

'Why've you got yer mobile out, then?'

'Phone a friend, was it?' Jack seems more amused than annoyed.

'Oh – _Joey!_' Adrian chides again. 'If my reputation here wasn't hangin' by a thread as it was, without you _cheating!_'

'Voice down, Adrian!' Jack growls. 'If we get away with it we could be 'ome and dry. Those bastards won't know what hit 'em!'

'_I can't believe what I'm hearing!'_

''ey, never mind that now,' Joey cuts them both off. They're going through the answers for this round now.

They've done pretty well between them; Joey places ostentatious ticks next to more than half the answers, sneaking looks at the other tables as he goes. Yizzel and his mate seem to be doing pretty well, too, annoyingly, but he lives in hope.

'Question Seventeen: in psychology, the initials CBT stand for – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.'

Joey smugly ticks his answer, earning himself a clap on the back from Jack, an '_eeeyyyy_ from Billy and a disapproving look from Adrian.

Joey's mobile chirps. He steals a glance at the text message that's just come through.

_u r in trou8bl mr bosw34l_

He chortles, flicks a quick text back to her.

_Worth it! _

'Joey!' Jack growls. 'You're givin' the game away!'

He jerks his head in Yizzel's mate's direction, and Joey stuffs the phone under the table before anyone can look round and see.

Another text comes in from Martina. He steals a glance at it.

_bet8r be_

'_Joey!_' Adrian hisses, face red now. '_Stop texting!_'

'It's only Martina!'

Jack's lascivious smile erupts from his face again.

'What did I tell yer? On a bloody leash.'

* * *

'And what time d'you call this?' Martina admonishes when she answers the door to him (he's got his key in his hand, but his motor skills are fuzzy, and he's been trying unsuccessfully to get it into the lock for ten minutes.) 'What's all this I hear about you cheating at the pub quiz? Usin' my suffering for more devious Boswell _gains_ – I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose…'

Joey assumes his most charming expression. 'We won by one point.'

Martina just stands in the doorway, an eyebrow raised. Joey plays his trump card, brings his hand out from behind his back, presents the box of chocolates he's got her with a flourish.

'Your point,' he elaborates when she doesn't move. Her eyes flick down to the chocolates and back to him.

'Oh, yeah?' She's employing her behind-the-counter voice, but the corner of her mouth is twitching, an amused smirk trying to fight its way onto her face.

'And seein' as how you helped us scrape home, it seems only fittin' we share the spoils of victory with you. But we drank it all, and you're not supposed to drink with your antidepressants, so I thought these would do instead.' A quick stop off at the Co-op on the way home, if he's brutally honest, grabbing the first thing he saw that looked vaguely present-y. One part gratitude for her winning point, two parts grovel because he's been caught doing a minor dodgy.

Martina can't keep it in then, she snickers out loud, the snicker evolving into a full-blown laugh.

'You're drunk,' she admonishes, taking the chocolates from him and grabbing him by the arm. 'And you'd _better _not tell me you drove home.'

'Okay,' Joey grins as she hauls him across the threshold. 'I won't tell yer.'

Martina looks from him to their garden, where his S-type is parked at a haphazard diagonal angle across both the driveway and the front lawn, her mouth twisting in disapproval. (It was set up by Jack, a willing and sober contributor to his tease who'd towed him back behind his van, but she need never know).

'One of these days, Joey Boswell, I swear to God…'

Joey kisses her, kicks the door shut behind them. She never does end up telling him what she'll do to him one of these days.

(She does eat the chocolates, though.)

* * *

'I thought I'd finish off tonight with _The Road Less Travelled_,' Adrian announces to his disgruntled audience, after what may have been his dullest recital yet.

'Like the one between you and gainful employment, you mean?' Martina is on form today, in spite of a pretty horrible relapse earlier this morning. She slouches in Adrian's armchair, the sarkiest smirk on her face Joey's seen in a long time, twiddling her thumbs, just waiting until he fires something back so she can unleash another put-down. There's a twinkle in her eyes, one that only comes from being jokingly horrid to people, that Joey loves, that makes him want to ignore the presence of Adrian, Irenee, Aveline, Oswald, Ursula and Billy, go over to that chair and snog her senseless.

'_Why do you come?!_' Adrian demands. 'If you're just gonna find fault with every word I say, why do you keep comin' here every single time?'

'There aren't many joys in my bleak little existence,' Martina shrugs. 'But watchin' your face change colour when I bruise your artistic ego is one of them.'

There's perhaps more truth to her words than his brother realises. Martina _likes _picking arguments with people – it's wired into her from all those years at some variation of the DHSS. Sinking sarcastic barbs into undeserving cases has always been an outlet for her frustration, and now she's out of her job, and hasn't got scroungers and benefit cheats to unload on, she needs a dumping ground for all those unsaid wicked comments. And Adrian is far too easy a target, given he retaliates at the slightest provocation.

Joey should tell her to leave off his brother for a while, but…well…it's doing something for her. She needs a pick-me-up, even if it does involve tormenting him. And Adrian's poetry evenings are only getting more torturous for everyone involved. He's begun to look forward to Martina's disparaging remarks as a bit of comic relief to cut through the treacle.

Adrian, however, is furious. And because Martina is in one of his comfy chairs, looking far less intimidating than she does from the other side of a counter, the poet of the family has summoned the courage to have a go right back at her.

'My ego – no, any sense of dignity I had – is hangin' by a thread! I try to better myself, and I get 'im stuffing his gob with biscuits and asking inane questions,' Adrian gestures vigorously at Billy, 'and I get _you_ unleashing your ferocious little gob on me – stripping away my confidence with your teeth, I might add – just because you've got nothing better to do! I do realise you've got no job, and sans your counter and the plastic shield in front of your face, there's nothing fencing in that built-in aggression and soul-crushing nastiness of yours, but I would have thought _even you_ would have the common decency to show a bit of compassion to a man desperately trying to hold onto a _shred_ of dignity and self-respect, in his _own home_…'

Martina, in spite of the situation, in spite of the insults, doesn't seem perturbed in the least by Adrian's tirade. Her mouth is pursed into a thin line – not because she's angry, though. Joey knows all of the tell-tale signs of that. She's trying not to laugh.

He'd say something, but Joey's having a hard time with that one himself.

'You are a wicked woman,' he chastises as they leave.

Martina tosses her head and lets out the laugh she's been holding in all evening, the lovely ringing sound enough to set Joey off with it as well.

'Tell me something I don't know, Mister Boswell. Tell me something I don't know.'

In spite of all that, she rings Adrian later that night and apologises to him. Joey's so shocked to overhear it he nearly falls out his chair.

(Not as shocked as the following week, though. She gets through the entire recital without saying a word, and even Adrian seems astounded. She lets out her laughter once they're safely away, and spends the entire car trip back to Gateacre regaling Joey with every snarky comment she'd held back, but the strangeness of it still amazes him).

* * *

It's very much a case of one step forward, ten steps back, but they've made a tiny amount of progress, and Joey holds onto it with both hands, tries to nourish any positive feelings when they emerge from within her. He's catching glimpses of the real her again, and he's determined not to let them be extinguished.

Any sliver of a good mood and he capitalises on it, cancels jobs, announces _right, we're going out now_ and drives her somewhere lovely, making good on his promise to motivate her to enjoy herself. And though some days Martina grumbles, or chastises him for fobbing off work he needs now she's not earning, he can tell from the calm that emanates from her afterwards that he's doing something right.

He's scouted out a good spot for today's exercise – both in showing her a good time and in encouraging her to get out of her own head, focus on something else for a change. A nice, quiet country lane, miles from home, where she might be able to…

'All right, then.' Joey stops the engine, presses the keys into her fist. 'Come 'ed. This looks like a good stretch.'

'What for?'

Joey closes her fingers around the keys.

'You tell me, sweetheart. You tell me.'

Realisation dawns on her face, and with it, a look of horror.

'_No!'_ Martina flings the keys back into his lap as if they've burnt her.

'I just thought –'

'You thought nothing, Mister Boswell.'

_Where did this defensiveness come from?_ Joey's astounded by how quickly her switch flipped. She normally builds up to anger over a period of time, phasing through different degrees of irritation first. This is different. There's fear in there somewhere, apprehension, and he suspects that sped up the transition.

'Go on. What've you got to lose?'

'Me life, me ability to walk…'

'I hardly think it's gonna come to that here! We're in the middle of nowhere. What's the worst that could happen on a country road where the only thing you're likely to hit is…'

'That tree? That fence? That _duck?_'

The mention of the duck is a deliberate attempt to deflect. She knows Joey too well, knows he won't like the sound of any cruelty to animals even by accident.

'Look, we're veering away from the point. I just thought –'

'—_and _what about the damage to yer precious _Jaguar?_'

'It's not me _precious_ Jaguar. It's me tertiary Jaguar.' The silver XJ; his extra Jag. Not that he doesn't care for it, but it doesn't hold a special place in his heart like his poor dear retired MKII, nor the S-type that takes its place. He wasn't going to keep it for himself. He's got the blue X-type for everyday use. This is the one he had bought with plans of gifting it to her (well, only the best of the Boswell best for _his_ wife) – only Martina's stubborn refusal to set foot in the driver's seat of any car meant he'd never got round to suggesting that to her, let alone admitting it was meant to be a present for her, and he'd ended up with a fourth Jag for himself instead.

'Oh, God. He's treatin' luxury cars as disposables now.'

'Make you a deal. Learn in it, and it's yours.'

'Er – you assume I want it.'

'Go on. Why not? It'd give you a bit of freedom, wouldn't it? Go places under your own steam. You won't need to sit around waitin' for me to drive yer or fishing around for those god-awful bus timetables if you wanna go anywhere.'

'I've managed to avoid that source of stress for most of me life – and I don't intend to start now. I've managed perfectly well with buses up til now.'

'It doesn't have to be stressful, you know. Think of all the benefits!'

'I know you and benefits, Mister Boswell. If you're toutin' the benefits of something, there's probably something in it for you.'

Joey simply shakes his head. 'If by "something in it" you mean _an additional source of joy for me lovely wife – once she gets over her stubborn streak and accepts it for what it is – _then yes.'

He gets the trifecta of Martina disapproving actions – an eye roll, a tut-sigh and a half-hearted smack to his shoulder.

'Honestly, though – why? It's not like you to be afraid like this.'

'I'm not afraid, love, it's just…' Martina sighes, pushes her hair off her face. 'Everything in me life is uncertain, Joey. Especially now, while I'm trying to work things out. I don't want to add another uncertainty to it all. I've only just started to feel a bit of relief from the despair now and then and…I don't wanna spoil it. I just want what I've got to settle a bit, all right?'

He supposes that makes sense. It's likely not the reason she didn't bother all these years (he thinks a lack of motivation caused by her mental state is the culprit there), but he can see in her eyes it's the truth now. She is trying to claw herself back up, see the good in life again, even if she's had a few false starts. She's just not overdoing it, not filling her plate with more than she can swallow at once. He can't push her too hard. She's still fragile.

'One day, then?'

Martina considers. 'One day, that'd be nice. Just not now.'

'Okay. Fair enough. Whenever you're ready, it's yours for the taking.'

They go for a bit of a ramble instead, Joey's hand finding hers, squeezing it in a firm gesture of reassurance.

'How's your head, sweetheart?'

Martina pauses to frown up at him. 'How d'you mean?'

'Still feel strange?' It had been one of her complaints about her current prescription; the strange buzzing in the back of her brain. She's persevered with them for three months now, longer than she's stuck with any of them, so it mustn't be too horrific.

'No,' the response comes out almost in wonder. As if she hasn't really thought about it, is surprised by what she finds. 'I mean…sometimes. But for the most part…no.'

Joey hugs her to his side. 'We'll take that as a good sign, then.'

'We will not be taking _anything_ as a _good sign_, Mister Boswell. Sayin' something is a _good sign_ is just askin' for trouble. It's tempting fate.'

'What a suspicious lady you are.'

'I wonder where that comes from? With a degree in fending off scroungers, a devious husband and an even more devious daughter, and all the other little Boswells gathering round me always after something?'

'Sometimes, though, sweetheart,' Joey says, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to him. 'Sometimes, things can just be good. And that's just how they are. No catch, no strings…that's just it.'

Martina looks anywhere but him. 'Yeah. I suppose.'

'So we can take it as a good sign, then?' he pushes gently.

She pauses. And smirks.

'No.'

'God, you're stubborn, aren't you?' Joey can't help but laugh. That sheer Martina brand of stubbornness is something he's grown used to over the years, and he's had to accept that sometimes it will out for no other reason than the fact that she's a stubborn person. At least that's what he's seeing today, rather than the depression-induced wilfulness and determination to be miserable that's clouded her head for the past who-knows-how-long.

Martina laughs as well, spurred on by his contagious cackling – and Joey's grin widens, even as his heart skips a beat. Martina laughing is such a beautiful sound, a long-lost old friend, gone so long he'd forgotten just how much he missed it. A little piece of her he hadn't realised had been trampled out – but here it is now, its presence highlighting its earlier absence, giving him another little flicker of hope in his chest that finally – _finally_ – they're getting towards a corner she can turn.

* * *

'You're in good sorts today.'

'Am I?' Martina raises an eyebrow at Doctor Daker. 'You know, normally when people say that, they're after something. Upped your fee, 'ave yer?'

'I don't suppose anyone has told you you're needlessly suspicious, have they?'

'Every day, Doctor Daker. Every day.' Her mouth twists. 'I 'ad to be, you know. In me job. You could only believe what people said to yer fifty per cent of the time – if that. And if you weren't careful, they'd be walkin' off with half the state's money and yer watch as well.'

'I think this is the third session in a row you've smiled at me.' He's too pleased with himself for his own good. She settles her face back into its resting sarky-civil-servant mode, but it's too late. She'd smiled. And he'd seen it.

'Looks like our little chats might finally be helping.'

'Well, they've helped Joey,' she snorts. 'He won a pub quiz 'cause he knows what Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is.'

She makes him laugh at this remark, though she can't tell if this is pleasing or annoying.

'I knew there was a sense of humour in you somewhere.'

She remembers Adrian Boswell saying something similar to her once; her furious response.

_No, Mister Boswell, I have not. That sound you heard was hysteria. It is emitted automatically when someone dings my bell with their gall._

She can't bring herself to say something similar now. For one thing, Joey's drunken success (and his triumph when he came home) was pretty bloody funny, after all.

And in the most unlikely of places, she finds herself laughing. For some reason (perhaps it is hysteria after all), it grips her for a while. She steadies herself on the arm of her chair, tries to cover her mouth with her hand, but she can't stop.

'If someone told you six months ago you'd be sitting here laughing with me…you'd never have believed them.'

That's going just a little bit too far. She narrows her eyes at him.

'A fluke, that's all. Nothing more.'

'You don't fool me…for all you go on that your life is doomed to fail and there's nothing you can do about it, you don't believe your own words.'

He shakes his head at her, and Martina wants to be angry but she's not really in the mood. She can't really agree though, either, and it casts a shadow over her reasonably good humour. She'd like to think things won't fail, but…there are so many things she wishes she hadn't done. They sit like little nicks in her countenance, letting bacteria in to fester, to seep in just when things seem to be looking up.

She sighs, feeling her insides sink.

'I just can't get it all out me mind, though.'

'All what?'

'That great blockade between me and emotional peace. The blockade that consists of one great big slab of Shifty's suicide and another great big slab that's the knowledge that I've only got one person left in me family, I left her for dead and I don't know how to make things right.'

'A good place to start might be…'

'To speak to 'er, I know,' Martina sighs, pre-empting his response. 'It's not that simple.'

'Why isn't it?' Doctor Daker peers at her. 'What are you afraid of?

What _is_ she afraid of? Being hurt? She's been through all that. She's been right to the edge and back. There's not much more anyone can do to her at this point.

Being wrong? She knows that, but owning up to it is something else entirely.

'I'm afraid of…' Martina hesitates. Oh, God, she's answering his questions directly, admitting things, letting emotions out. How long has she been doing that? She'd vowed she never would.

'Of…' she persists regardless. She's not going to do a Jack and tail off with '_things_,' no matter how tempting it is. 'Of facing up to the mess I've made.'

'Well, the wonderful thing about messes,' Doctor Daker says, eyes crinkling as he smiles at her, 'is they can always be cleared up.'

* * *

'It'll be all right, sweetheart. Just take it easy.'

Joey has rubbed her shoulder about fifty times, but Martina can't relax. She's spoken to her Mam on the phone a handful of times since that fateful visit a few months ago, but visiting again, after everything that's gone on, swallowing her pride and making amends (not to mention bringing Joey and Annabelle along) is nerve-wracking to say the least. She's got to speak to her Mam on the quiet at some point, try and right the wrongs she's done. And on top of that, she's got to hope Belle behaves herself and doesn't let the side down (one's first impression of one's granddaughter, she thinks, should be of a lovely well-behaved girl – not a cheeky gremlin who thinks she knows better than her elders, and Martina's not sure Belle will even try to tone down that side of herself.)

'But if –'

'Look,' Joey squeezes her hand, 'nothing's gonna happen. Okay? It's a normal thing normal families do every day. Nothing to fret over.'

'Are you sure you wanna go through with it?'

'Am I sure? I'm excited about it, sweetheart.'

_Oh, good._ She can't resist an eye-roll.

'More people to show off to. Your idea of Heaven, isn't it?'

'And fam-i-ly. Don't forget, it's more fam-i-ly.'

'She's not a _Boswell_. She's one of me, not one o' you.'

'One of _us, _sweetheart. Don't _you_ forget, we're amalgamated, you and me. When you get married, your person's family becomes yours. Which means, Martina, that she's a Boswell – through you.'

'Oh, what a load of _rubbish_.' Still, it makes Martina smile. Being bestowed the title of Boswell is, according to the heir to the throne of Boswell himself, the highest honour one can achieve.

Annabelle's reaction when they tell her where they're going is…not wholly unexpected.

'Your mother's still _living?_ How old is she, an 'undred?'

Martina clips her round the ear for that comment.

* * *

Her Mam has met Joey before, just the once before they got married, but hasn't seen him for years. It's as if she's bringing him to meet her for the first time all over again. Joey's charm endears her Mam quickly; she's almost in love with him herself after ten minutes of conversation. Joey's always had that effect on people. Herself included, Martina admits privately, though she'd tried her best for years to cover that up with a façade of hatred.

Annabelle is a completely new experience, though, and her Mam appears blown away, struck dumb by Belle's cheeky confidence, her exuberance, her younger, underdeveloped version of Joey's allure. And though Martina finds herself with her face in her hands more than once, peering with morbid fascination through her fingers as Annabelle goes a bit too near the knuckle at times, it seems to be going rather well.

'He's a lovely lad, your husband,' her Mam says as they stand in the kitchen, putting teacups on a tray. 'What's he see in you?'

Martina shrugs. 'Haven't the foggiest. And less of the lovely – he's a devious bastard. He just knows how to turn on the charm.'

She shakes her head fondly, concentrates on spooning sugar in cups.

'Annabelle's a lot like you, you know.'

That makes her pause.

'In looks, maybe. In everything else, she's sheer Joey.'

'I don't think so, Queen,' her Mam says. 'There's a lot more o' you in there than you think.'

'You mean because she's a head case?'

'She's a bright girl. You can tell just from speakin' to her.'

'Joey again.'

'No, she reminded me of you at that age. You're bright, love, you just…never used it.'

Martina feels that familiar sinking in her chest. How many times has she heard now that she more or less wasted her life? She grits her teeth, tries to quell the familiar turbulent thoughts sloshing around in her head.

'Don't get yer 'opes up about our Belle. She only wants to use her intelligence to commit crimes, you know.'

'She'll grow out of it.'

'Boswells don't grow out of things. They seem to be born fully-formed, bad habits and all. Any dodgy character traits are still kicking about when they're forty.'

This remark is mainly made with Billy in mind, though it could be true of any of them. She's known them all for twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight years and none of them have 'grown out' of anything, even as they pass the threshold of middle age. Their clay seemed to have set quite early on. Adrian still throws artistic tantrums. Billy is a small boy in a man's body, Aveline a teenage girl. Joey talks his way out of corners; Nellie shrieks; Jack blunders; Freddie waltzes between them and Lilo Lil as it takes his fancy (even though he can barely walk anymore and has to be pushed). The chances of Belle suddenly having an epiphany and changing her ways are quite slim. Not that Martina particularly minds, as long as she keeps herself out of trouble.

'P'raps they're not the only ones.'

Martina doesn't like hearing that, but she supposes it's true all the same. Her dad gambled until he breathed his last. Roger and drink clearly continued their love affair until the latter killed the former. Her mam enabled them both. And as for Martina herself, with her stubbornness, the longevity of the grudges she holds, her refusal to see people as they really are once she's tarred them with a particular brush…

'Mam?'

Her mother regards her warily. She has every right to, Martina supposes.

'I'm sorry.' The words are difficult to get out against the slice of humble pie she's shoving down her own throat. It's harder than she thought it would be.

An arched eyebrow. She can see where she gets a lot of her own facial expressions from.

'Sorry for what?'

'Everything,' Martina says with feeling. 'Not trustin' you. Refusing to listen about Roger. Not really being around for the past…I don't know how long. Being…being absolutely bloody awful.'

Her mother has come up to her while she says this, and puts her arms around her now.

'I forgive you,' she says, so quietly Martina might have missed it.

But she didn't.

They go back into the living room with the tea and never acknowledge it again.

But she starts visiting her Mam regularly, and a piece of her heart she didn't realise was missing falls back into place. You do need your family. You love your family, no matter what you might _think_. The Boswells, with all their sainted family unity, have actually stumbled upon the secret to life, she decides. And she's going to use what she's learned.

'Oh, shut up,' she says to Joey, when he starts with his _I told you so_ speech. Making peace might feel bloody good, but it doesn't mean Joey's _right_. She'd never admit to that.

There's someone else she needs to make peace with, though. And this one's going to be a lot trickier.

* * *

'You sure you don't want me to come with?'

Joey's hand is tight around hers, but Martina has made her mind up. She needs to do this alone.

'It won't take long. An hour at most.'

Joey's still concerned. She supposes she understands. Last time she went off to do something important on her own, she came back all but destroyed. She's a little stronger now, but this might still knock her off-balance.

'At least take the dog.' He passes Edgar's leash to her.

'Joey, that's not necessary – '

'Please.' Joey holds his hands up. 'Just – I don't want you to be alone for this. It's gonna be rough.'

'All right, Mister Boswell,' Martina concedes, rolling her eyes as she takes the lead from him, 'I'll take the bloody dog. Just don't blame me if he gets a heart attack from all this walkin'. It's more exercise than he's done in 'is life.'

Joey chuckles, though he still seems a bit concerned. She shakes her head at him, lets him kiss her goodbye, and then he's heading off and away from the cemetery, leaving her more or less alone.

She wanders along the rows of tombstones, Fat Edgar padding alongside her.

She walks by Grandad's grave, has a few words with the old man for old times' sake, visits her father's grave and says nothing, just touches the headstone, unsure what she _can_ say. She'd abandoned both her parents, and they were just trying to protect her. That one's a bitter pill to swallow, as is the fact that while she did bring herself to go and say goodbye at the time, she knows it wasn't enough. At least she's still got her Mam. She's going to make more of an effort with her, while there's time.

She finally finds Shifty's and sits in front of it for a while, a few stray tears falling. And then the tears accumulate, flooding her face, flowing freely, and she cries openly. Of all of the people she's lost, Shifty's death is the hardest to come to terms with. The others came about mainly due to age and illness. Shifty had decades left in him and wasted them. Cut his life short. Let himself be consumed by his own sins rather than embrace the potential he had to be so much more.

Edgar IV flops down beside her, nudges her arm with his muzzle. She scratches his ears, comforted by his fur between her fingers, by his daft dependence and loyalty.

Stupid dog.

She's always been more of a cat person (or even a goldfish person, a product of living in flats for most of her life), has always been wary of big dogs. She'd had the fright of her life when Joey decided to start bringing large Alsatians home with him, but she's used to having one Edgar or another in her personal space now. Even if it does mean muddy paws on her nice floorboards and Joey claiming for 'guard dogs' for longer than he should have. And though she wouldn't admit it, Fat Edgar is her favourite of all of them ,and it annoys her how much she loves him because one day, as with the other Edgars and with all her goldfish she'd loved in spite of herself, he's going to die.

Like so many people she loves too, she thinks, running her fingers over the inscription on the stone in front of her.

_Liam McCrory Boswell (Shifty)  
1958 – 2004 _

Oh, God. She's never let herself look at it before.

Bloody idiot. Bastard though he was, Martina can't bear the thought of his life ending the way it did. Much as he drove her to financial and emotional ruin, she can't bear the thought of the world turning without him in it somewhere, with his winsome little _who, me?_ smile and his light fingers always lifting something and his tendency to pile his plate twelve storeys high.

That doesn't mean she doesn't love Joey. It's different. Her love for Shifty was destructive passion, addictive but guiltily pleasurable, much the same as Joey's love for Roxy had been. Her love for Joey is calm, steady, an anchor that keeps her from falling off the face of the earth. A safe place to hide in when life gets to be too much.

She supposes Joey was right when he told her it's impossible to stop loving someone altogether. If you can, you didn't really to begin with. And much as she wished Shifty far away from her, was relieved to be away from his diabolical ways when she left him, she never wished him dead. Never wished him harm. Always wished, in the daft little part of her heart that hopes beyond reason, that he would be all right one day – far away from her still, but happy and all right. It never occurred to her, given Shifty was prone to excusing away his bad behaviour and acting remorseless, that somewhere inside him, guilt consumed him to the point where he couldn't live with himself anymore. If she'd known, could there have been a better way of going about everything? A gentler way of extricating herself from him?

Edgar lifts his paws and puts them in her lap.

'Stupid dog,' Martina murmurs again, but she doesn't attempt to move him. Joey was right about that and all; having Edgar here is better than facing this alone. It's horrific, seeing empirical evidence of what Shifty's done.

'What could I have done, love?' she asks the dog absently. She's wondered that for six years, agonised over it, and yet she still doesn't have an answer. She doesn't know if she ever will.

Maybe, the thought occurs, she doesn't need to.

'I did love you,' she whispers, and lets her hand fall from the stone.

They sit there for another hour until Joey comes back to pick her up.


	11. Chanson D'Amour

**This fic is pretty close to being finished now! (Not everything will be 100% resolved, because that's not realistic for some of the situations, but I'm ending on a note of hope). Some reasonably big revelations will happen in this chapter, and some more general progression.**

** Anyway, usual housekeeping: I don't own Bread, original Joey and Aveline, no particular message about mental health, just a story. And the quote from Are You Being Served comes from Series 2 Episode 2, 'Cold Comfort.' And the song this chapter is named after and which is mentioned is also something I don't own. **

* * *

**X**

**Chanson D'Amour**

They have a peaceful Christmas. Martina seems heartened by the festivity around her, by Belle's over-the-top enthusiasm (for someone who dresses like a ghoul, Belle has always been a cheery soul, especially at this time of year), by Nellie and Billy's visit, by Adrian and the kids' visit on Boxing Day, and Joey relishes every moment.

New Year's Eve goes equally well, Joey spending a fantastic few hours down the pub with his brothers, and they all end up having a few too many. Even Adrian, who's a lot more of a laugh with a few Guinness in him, drops his affected pomposity and sings at the top of his lungs with the rest of them, seeming more like the Jimmy he remembers from their childhood.

Joey stumbles home just in time to make midnight and practically falls forward into Martina's arms.

'Don't,' she ducks his attempt at a kiss. 'Not with breath on yer like that.'

'It's tradition,' Joey insists.

'So is working nine to five, but you've never kept that one.'

'You're only jealous 'cause you couldn't get pissed yourself.'

He's missed that a little bit. Martina drunk is rare but endearing; her blurry attempts at sternness are hilarious, and the brazen forwardness that often comes out isn't something he'd complain about either. He's been on the receiving end of some pretty spectacular seductions over the years because Martina's put a few away; fond memories all of them.

She points forcefully in the direction of the stairs. 'Go to bed. And if you're sick, Heaven knows I'm not the one who's gonna be cleanin' it up.'

Joey stumbles up to their room, pretends to be blacked out when she comes up herself, then ambushes her and drags her down for a snog.

'Oh, God!' Martina wrests herself free and cuffs him. 'Couldn't you have brushed yer teeth?!'

And so 2011 commences with her telling him off.

That's tradition as well.

So far so good.

* * *

You grow to look like your job, don't you, the cows in the queue for her counter used to drawl, filling the old DHSS with smoke and whinging at her. It might just be a trick of the mind, but Martina's noticed herself un-DHSS-ifying. Her voice is softer; no need to try and talk over someone shouting her down. Her fingers are losing the calluses she's had all those years, born of clutching her pen for dear life to contain her irritation; the RSI in her wrists from scribbling and typing case details seems to have cleared up. There's a little more colour in her cheeks, she squints less and blinks more; though she's been put through the wringer these past few months, her face has softened. She doesn't have to harden it and pretend to be impenetrable. She doesn't have to pull down a visor to get through each day at the DHSS.

Oh, God, she's started calling it the DHSS and all. She supposes that really does mean she's removed from it now, the fact that she's reverted to using its old name, become one of _those_ people who ignores that it's the Jobcentre and was the DSS for a long time. She always tells Joey off for calling it that. She supposes being around him day in, day out was bound to rub off on her eventually.

Still. There are worse fates than picking up mild Joey Boswell character traits.

Doctor Daker's daft exercise isn't that bad this week; just think about a few things that she's thankful for. So she decides to get it over with, sits on the sofa with Fat Edgar half in her lap and considers.

She loves her husband, devious bastard that he is.

She loves her daughter, obnoxious little monstrosity that she is.

She loves her dog, though she would never let on.

She likes her house. Is still thrilled about it, in fact, even after sixteen years in it. She'd never expected to have something so beautiful to her name. Joey had let her choose it (from a list of his favourites, but no matter); they'd gone and bought furniture together (after a few squabbles over their differing tastes); they'd made this into a home.

She's got her Mam now; another chance.

And then there are the Boswells as well. God, if anyone told her, long ago, that she would consider the Boswell family one of the better things in her life, she would have told them to get their head checked. And yet they are.

Nellie, whose dislike of her softened after Annabelle was born, and with whom mutual respect developed after they realised their fierce protectiveness of Joey united them.

Freddie, who's not around much but is a laugh, who's always been kind to her, even if she doesn't approve of how he treats the others.

Billy (she's never going to call him Bill), well-meaning even if he is a bit simple, who was appreciative when she helped set him up with a premises for his sandwich business, who is generally friendly towards her, albeit tactless.

Adrian, with his crap poetry, always trying to educate her. He's still a bit afraid of her after all this time, but he was always on hand during Annabelle's early years to take care of her, and gave her the gift of cousins Belle loves like siblings. (Martina's got a soft spot for his youngest, Davey, herself. She'd spent a lot of time looking after him, growing to love his gentle, quiet affection. He's a nice antidote to Belle's brash behaviour sometimes.)

Aveline, who…well, she doesn't like Aveline that much, but Oswald is a good friend, and Ursula and Nick have always loved her dearly, and that makes Aveline tolerable.

And Jack. She doesn't speak to him that often, usually goes through Leonora, with whom she gets on surprisingly well, but Martina feels a fondness for Jack she doesn't for the other Boswells. Because she and Jack, in spite of having little in common, are on the same wavelength in some ways. She can empathise with him, coming home disappointed after yet another thing fell through for him – she's been there so often.

She thinks of some of the others, and lets herself drift through a phase of anger as well – counterintuitive to what she's supposed to be doing, but oh, well. She's more or less forgiven them, but part of her still can't believe Shifty killed himself, can't believe her dad gambled away a lot of the money her Mam saved, can't believe her family kept Roger from her or that Roger concealed himself from her for decades, or that so many of her claimants thought shattering her self-esteem in the name of their own selfish desires was justified.

But the only person she really, truly _hates_, she realises as she drifts further away from the point of the exercise, is Oscar Hartwell. Thinking of him sets brimstones of resentment alight inside her. It's not even jealousy. It was once, when she was pregnant with Annabelle. Not anymore. It's because after the decade of torment Roxy put him through, to see Joey suffer the same way _again_ at the hands of Roxy's son is truly horrific. That hatred soon drifts, reawakening her resentment of Joey for letting himself be put through that again, for forcing her and Annabelle to be dragged into the middle of it. And that sets off a chain reaction, unleashing anger she didn't even know she had – about Joey not bothering to tell her he knew she was depressed, about Joey knowing for all these years what had become of Roger and not thinking to mention it.

And by the time Joey comes in, she's not calm, as she had hoped she would be after this exercise, but seething.

'Greeti—' Joey stops mid-trill when he sees her face. Heaven knows what it looks like. If it looks anything like it feels, it's probably terrifying.

Joey wrings his hands – he never seems to know where to put them in an awkward situation. His suavity drops a few degrees. He fiddles with the wedding ring on his left hand and the signet ring on his right, plays with the buttons on his cuffs, twiddles his thumbs.

'What's wrong with you, then?'

She can see his eyes darting about as he tries to work out what he's done recently to spark her ire. She's been in a good mood consistently for over a week.

But it isn't something he's done recently. It's everything he's ever done. And she doesn't even know where to begin explaining that.

'I need to talk to yer,' she tries anyway.

'What about?' Joey is apprehensive.

'Why,' Martina shuts her eyes, 'why didn't you tell me?'

'Tell you what, sweetheart?'

'You knew all these years what I was goin' through…even when I couldn't put a name to it. You _knew_,' she finds the words she needs, and the anger comes out with them. 'And you didn't say anything. For all you claim you care, you couldn't sit down and have one conversation with me about it until things reached boiling point, could you? Why didn't you care enough to do that?'

Joey looks befuddled.

'Where'd this come from?'

'_Why?_' Martina demands.

He opens his mouth.

'And don't give me that _I won't be told anything_ rubbish. Why didn't you?'

He wrings his hands, grits his teeth. 'Look…'

Martina raises an eyebrow, sees him wince before he goes on.

'I didn't think you wanted to hear it. That's why.'

She eyes him suspiciously.

'I mean…I thought you needed to work it out for yourself. Perhaps I was wrong to do that, sweetheart. I thought it'd only do you more harm, that's all, and sometimes…sometimes you'd go through stretches of bein' cheerful and I'd think maybe everythin' was gonna be all right… I kept writin' it off. Because I didn't know what to do to help you, and it was easier sometimes to think it could be explained away as other things, that maybe you were just wary because of Shifty or just beaten down because of a hard day at work... I'm _sorry_, sweetheart…I should have talked to you. I know I should.'

It makes sense, she supposes, but it's not enough. Martina pushes.

'And why did you keep writing it off, I ask myself. Because for all you _claim_,' her voice is nasty now; she can't help it, 'you care, for all you _claim_ I can trust you, when it comes down to it, I can't, can I? Your mind's only half on me. Because when it comes down to it, what I can offer you – what Annabelle and I are to yer – isn't enough for you, is it? It never 'as been.'

'What's brought this on, for God's sake?!'

She knows she's not being rational. She's leaping from grievance to grievance without any logical transition, but she doesn't care. She ignores Joey's interjection, continues as if he hasn't spoken.

'Because as soon as it was possible, you were off again, weren't yer, taking off after Oscar Hartwell and trying to revive that part of your life. It doesn't matter how unhappy you were with Roxy, how ill-treated you were, how much she made you hurt your family back in the day, how much Oscar was _inevitably_ gonna do the same thing to you…you fell for it time and time again – and sometimes I can't help but wonder if you _wanted_ to fall for it.'

'What d'you mean, I _wanted_ to fall for it?' Joey splutters.

'You knew full well what was gonna happen to you if you enabled him. You chose self-inflicted suffering because you couldn't let go of a ridiculous pipe dream that somewhere out there you had a son –'

'– I thought we were over this!'

'_You _were over it, so obviously I just 'ad to forget about it, didn't I?

'I thought you knew, Martina,' he sounds a bit desperate now, 'when we talked about it the other night, that I'd let go of that idea. That I'd closed the book on it. That I knew it was harmin' me…and I thought you understood – you even said – '

' – Oh, yeah, you accepted it harmed _you_, but you seem to forget that everything you did, that destroying yourself that way didn't just hurt you – it was at my expense, and at Belle's expense – you left us in the lurch and worried for yer whenever he needed something – '

She's not sure what triggers it, but it's as if something in Joey snaps.

'All right, just _cut it_, now, Martina!' He hasn't shouted at her for a very long time. It startles her.

'You can't tell me, sweetheart, that it's _never_ crossed your mind to drop everything for fam-i-ly when they need it? Even if they're someone that hurt you repeatedly? Even if it's someone who _nearly destroyed yer?_'

Martina's heart stops. Because she knows exactly what he's implying, and it's as if he's thrown a bucket of cold water over her head.

'Never occurred to you, did it, that abandonin' your parents for Roger's sake wasn't…oh, I don't know…_exactly _the same sort of thing I did for Roxy and Oscar? Don't you think perhaps enablin' Roger was, maybe just in some _tiny_ sense…_exactly_ the same as me enablin' me son? And perhaps takin' off to go and see him because he _needed you_ was in some way…slightly similar to me takin' off because Oscar needed me? Perhaps it doesn't occur to you, little DHSS lady…' oh, he's furious, if he's calling her that now, 'for all your talk about _my_ hypocrisy, you're far more of an 'ypocrite than I've ever been!'

Martina just stares at him, stunned into silence. He's given her a few hard emotional whacks, hitting all her sore spots, though the biggest sting is that it's bloody true. She can't even refute what he's saying.

'So don't you _dare_ have a go at me for Oscar,' Joey hisses. 'Because you know, Martina – _you know_ – had it been you in that situation, you would have done the same. And _you did_. You disappeared into thin air to go to Roger. Left me and Belle afraid for your _life_ while you ran off to lick his wounds.'

'It's not –' Martina begins, but she can't get further than that. Because to say _it's not the same_ would be a lie.

'And as for you askin' why I didn't care enough – I don't know how many more hoops I can jump through, Martina, to prove to you that I've done nothing but! God, _yes, decades ago_ I was someone you couldn't trust because I was on the scrounge and you were handin' out the dole. And that's how it was, that was all. It was your job not to trust me, and it was my living to get what I could from you to help me fam-i-ly survive. But why does that mistrust _still_ have to hang like a black cloud over everything we do?'

'In case you haven't noticed,' Martina snaps, 'I don't work there anymore.'

'Well _how do you account for it then?!_' Joey bellows back. 'If that's not the reason, then what is?! All I ever did to you, Martina was try and love yer… all I did was try and _show_ you that!'

'It never made sense; I never understood it, that's why,' it's only when her voice breaks she realises she's crying. 'Why would you care, anyway? It's not as if I…'

It's not as if she…what? Is good enough? She can't put it into words _exactly_, but it drifts along those lines. A part of her has always felt that way. Nobody else has ever loved her enough to want just her, without wanting something else on the side. She doesn't qualify for unconditional love. Shifty wanted a place to stay and to hide his stolen trinkets, someone to take care of him, a receptacle for his lust now and then. Even her own brother used her, taking her money, her forgiveness, her goodwill in exchange for a bit of fraternal care. And remembering Joey running after Oscar all the time only reinforces the notion she's not enough for him either.

She thought she was over thinking this way. That she'd accepted it wasn't true. But something today has tipped her back off that cliff, and she can't control the thoughts exploding like fireworks in her brain.

'I don't know…' she tries again, 'if you needed someone after Roxy went or more benefits or you wanted a child…you have to want _something _from me or_ it doesn't make sense.'_

'I don't believe what I'm hearing,' Joey's voice is low, dangerous. 'I don't believe it.'

Martina opens her mouth, but Joey gestures so viciously she shuts it again.

'_Don't talk._ You've done enough damage.'

In normal circumstances, being ordered to shut up like this would make Martina's blood boil. It would make her snap back, hit back with everything in her artillery. But these are not normal circumstances. She's already regretting what she's said, realising, now she's been shocked out of her mood, that she didn't mean a word of it. Not really. Her bloody insecurities have spoken too loudly on her behalf – and now her relationship with Joey is on the edge of something dangerous, something irreversible if she doesn't tread carefully.

'If you need me to list a hundred things I love about you, Martina, I can – but I shouldn't have to. Because I show it every single day, Martina. Every day. I've not stopped showin' it since the moment you came back into me life. And if you _still_ can't see that, then p'raps we're just ploughing concrete here, sunshine.'

Martina's adrenaline spikes so sharply the whole room spins.

'Don't say that,' she pleads.

Joey rakes a hand through his hair, teeth gritted in frustration.

'_God_, it's been _seventeen years_ and I'm still talkin' to the same stubborn little girl who won't accept I love her. _Jesus!_ I thought we'd be past all that by now! It never crossed me mind, sweetheart, that after _seventeen bloody years_, after all we've been through together, you'd still – _God,'_ he says again, his breath hissing out of him. 'I can't talk to you right now, Martina. I can't. I – just – can't – _believe this_.'

He turns away from her, strides to the door, tension radiating through his body with every step he takes.

It reminds of her of the day she realised she was in love with him. She'd fled their dinner together, terrified by the revelation, and found herself in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Joey had run after her, sheltered her from the cold and the rain, done his best to keep her warm and dry and reassure her everything was going to be all right. And she had still had a go at him, slung every possible defence in her repertoire at him until he was hurt enough to back off.

She's always been determined not to let Joey love her. She's not even sure why, given she wants his love more than anything. Some strange, self-destructive compulsion in her still resists it, even now.

She doesn't want that anymore, though. She's sick of her faulty defence mechanisms attacking Joey, forcing him away when she needs him the most.

'Joey, I – '

He hesitates, turns back to her, eyebrows raised almost threateningly. She can see his jaw throbbing. He's angry, the kind of angry that suggests he's been severely rattled, that usually compels him to leave for a while, disengage, sit in his Jag or drive aimlessly until he's cooled down. She usually lets him. It's what he needs, and yet she can't bear it right now. She wants to be selfish.

'Don't go.'

It sounds pitiful. She doesn't know what she's trying to convey by saying it. Just doesn't want him to leave the room.

'I want you.'

Joey scrutinises her face for a second. And then something in him softens behind his outward anger; he crosses the room, sits down beside her, pulls her into his lap. He cradles her to him, crushing in his embrace, his stroking of her hair almost aggressive.

'I am not gonna hurt you, Martina,' Joey growls at her, even as he's caressing her, comforting her. 'And I'm not goin' anywhere. Get it into your head, okay? I'm _sick of sayin' it_.'

He's practically in tears himself now, he's still ferociously angry with her, and yet she understands why. Understands, in a burst of clarity, that this hasn't been easy on him either. That _she_ hasn't been easy on him. She's led him on a merry dance, trying to stay on her good side, and he goes far beyond what many people would put up with to stay strong for her. He deserves to be frustrated once in a while. He can't magically be expected to cope all the time just because she can't.

The startling realisation comes that this conversation has been years in the making. Decades, even. She's carried it round with her all this time – and so has Joey. And now it's gone, out the way, Martina feels a weight she didn't even know she was carrying is gone. She's had it out with him, every last little hurt. He's thrown his worries and insecurities out there as well, all their separate and combined fears projectiles they've flung at each other.

And in spite of the emotional carnage lying scattered around them, somehow they've come out the other side clinging to each other for dear life.

And she doesn't care that he's angry with her, just as long as he's still here.

'Love doesn't have to make sense, Martina,' he shudders against her; he's crying too now. 'I wish you'd stop tryin' to find some horrible way to explain it. There's no devious meaning behind it. It _just is_.'

'I know,' she whispers with feeling.

'Why did you say all that, then?_ Why?_' He's gripping her too tightly now; it hurts.

'I had to get rid of it.'

'How'd you mean?' she can hear the confusion in his voice.

'I hadn't made peace with yer. I thought I had, and yet…it was all still bottled in there. And I had to get it out to go on.'

Joey's touch is suddenly gentler, his caresses softer. He understands. He's still hurt, but he recognises the necessity of what just happened.

'And is it all out? Now?'

She shudders out a sigh. 'Think so.'

Joey kisses her painfully hard.

'Good, 'cause if you ever say that to me again, Martina, I'll thrash yer. I'm not going in circles with yer again. I've had it with all this.'

It's an empty threat and they both know it, but Joey is trying to convey the seriousness of it all. He can't cope with attacks like that. It's tearing him apart, the thought that she _still_ mightn't believe he loves her. He needs her to stop closing her barriers to him every time it gets hard – they have to stay open, no matter how insecure she's feeling. If they're going to get through this together, that's what needs to happen.

And that's a frightening concept, no matter how far she thinks she's come.

But she wants to do it, she really does. She doesn't want to keep hurting him.

'I love you,' she squeezes him tighter to herself, feeling his arms constrict around her as well.

'I know that,' Joey whispers into her hair. 'I just hope that you know it as well.'

It's several minutes before either of them moves.

* * *

It's a strange old life, Joey thinks, loving someone who's being treated for depression. There are ups. Then there are downs. Then in the midst of some of the darkest, downest periods, there are sudden ups that surprise him.

She's got another appointment this afternoon, and Martina's getting restless and irritable as she always does. She still hates going to the psychologist, even though she often comes back feeling okay now, sometimes even a bit better. She still doesn't like being vulnerable in front of people or letting her emotions out, because it means she has to let them take her for a while.

They don't always row, not like they used to, but Joey doesn't want to take the risk. It hasn't been a week since their explosive argument; he's not keen on another, no matter how mild. He's got an idea today.

'What are you plottin' over there?' Martina looks up from her sulk on the sofa when she sees him come in, the colourful bundle in his arms. It had taken him ages to collect his bounty, going on a hunt round the house over the past few days, and he's no idea how many of these things he's got.

'You've got all these crocheted squares you've made over the years and just abandoned. You should do summat with them.'

He dumps them all over her, just to hear the annoyed noise she makes.

Martina pushes one off her head.

'What, you mean get rid of them?'

'I was thinkin' more make summat with them. Join them all up. You've got enough there to make a good big blanket for us for next winter.'

Martina's eyes narrow.

'Are you giving me _homework?!'_

'I am, yes,' says Joey. She needs external motivation to do things she enjoys; he's going to give it to her. It was one of his promises to her; he intends to keep it. 'You've got skills in this, sweetheart. You could use them to create something, make summat meaningful. No need to sit around starin' at the wall.'

'Mm,' she looks at the huge pile of squares, her own beautiful handiwork, though she doesn't appreciate them as such. 'Maybe.'

He presses one of the squares into her hands, curls her fingers around it. '_Do it_.'

She gives him a little glare, as she always when he orders her do something for her own self-care, but he sees her relent, get down on her knees on the floor and start laying the squares out in front of her.

The sight of her actually doing something creative makes Joey's heart melt a little, but not so much as when he returns from the kitchen with freshly-made tea to see her utterly absorbed, organising her squares into piles by colour, and hears, to his surprise, a little nightingale-like noise.

She's singing to herself, a song he recognises from the past but can't quite remember. He hasn't heard her sing in a long time, not since Belle was little and she'd do all the Christmas carols with her, and even then, she was always a bit half-arsed with it, a bit self-conscious. And he doesn't remember her _ever_ singing to herself before. Not once in nearly sixteen years of marriage. She's relaxed now and it's happening naturally, and her voice, though a little bit out of key, is soft and lovely.

He comes closer and sits beside her on the floor, ears on stalks listening for the words, and he works it out. _Chanson D'amour._

'_Je t'adore…each time I hear…'_

'Rat-a-tat-a-tat,' he trills in her ear.

She elbows him, belts up in embarrassment.

'Aw, don't stop. It was nice, you doin' that.'

'Give over.'

'No, it _was._ I've never heard you singin' to yourself before.' He wraps his arms around her, squeezes her shoulders. 'Happy little you.'

'Not –_ happy_.'

Joey sighs. 'I know, sweetheart. But…it's like little bits of you that have been gone are comin' back now and again. Gradual, like. Bits you've lost for a very long time. Even bits from before I met yer, that I've never seen before. Don't let that slip away, sweetheart; it's nice to see.'

Her hair's tied in a messy knot on top of her head, exposing the little curl he loves on her neck. He fiddles with it as she works.

'Stop it.'

He ignores, her, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.

Martina shakes her head, keeps on sorting, resigns herself to being caressed by him.

'So,' Joey says, watching Martina put a group of pinkish squares together in a pile, 'like that song, do you?'

'I think I did once.'

'Once?'

'When it was popular. I would've been, what? Seventeen or eighteen? It's the last song I can remember really liking.'

'Well we've got a start, haven't we? You _have _got a taste in music somewhere in there. Even if it's…_questionable.'_

Martina elbows him again.

'Well, it's better than Belle's, I'll give you that. At least that's a cheerful song, even if it is crap.'

'Want to try for three?' Martina's elbow is poised to strike again.

'Oh, go on then.'

Martina gapes at him in surprise. Joey knows all too well that playing the shock card makes it easy to get one over on her.

'You _want_ me to hurt yer?'

'No,' Joey grins, watches her seethe, 'I just wanted to see that look on your face.' He's laughing as he grabs her round the waist, pulling her against him, and then she's laughing as well, a light in her eyes he sees more and more these days.

She still grumbles when it gets to half past one and he tears her away from the squares to go to her appointment, but she goes with him without having to be dragged.

* * *

She spends most of the session debriefing on her row with Joey. It's altered things somehow – although, she's surprised to find, it's altered them for the better.

'It's as if for the first time,' Martina can't look Doctor Daker in the eye, embarrassed by her admission, 'I'm not holding a grudge against him anymore. But God, it took a bloody catastrophe to get there. I was worried I'd lost him for a minute.'

'And why is that?'

'I've never seen him so…wounded.' She cringes saying it, admitting she'd dug the knife in until Joey had bled. 'He couldn't believe I still had that in me.'

'And why did you?'

There was a time when she had been irritated by Doctor Daker's constant probing. When she'd clamped her gob shut and kept herself from revealing too much. She's long past that now.

'I always felt it was too good to be true,' she sighs. 'I mean…it just didn't make sense – what I was seeing. Joey was always a devious bastard when I encountered him at work and then… to see him being so kind to me…'

'You couldn't believe there wasn't an ulterior motive.'

It's awful to admit, but…

'Yeah.' Martina lowers her head, ashamed. 'I thought I was past all that…it was always there, though. In the back of my mind. I never really got to grips with the idea that the Joey Boswell who loves me is the same Joey Boswell who used to try and charm me to get what he wanted.'

Doctor Daker half-smiles at her.

'And what about all the times you've sat there telling me how the people who claimed from you had you down as a nasty piece of work, and treated you as such? You kept telling me you wished they'd see that was your job, and what you were doing to survive – that it wasn't you.'

'Yeah, all right,' Martina shakes her head. 'I take the point.'

She sighs.

'I took it then and all. I was aware of it, you know. What I was doing. What I was accusing 'im of. I just didn't know how to stop meself until it was out of me system. And I had to get rid of it no matter what.'

'Good to see you facing up to some of those unrealities in your head. Taking them down.'

'Oh, yeah? Done something right, have I? Does this mean I'll be free of you soon?'

'I wouldn't get your hopes up,' Doctor Daker says, his smile kind even as he's teasing her. 'I think you and I will be seeing a great deal more of each other yet.'

'Oh, God,' Martina moans, rolling her eyes.

Funny thing is, though, this doesn't seem as devastating as it would have a while ago. Either their bloody sessions are actually starting to help, or she's just getting acclimatised to them.

She'll sort of miss him, she supposes, when she graduates to a stage where she doesn't need him anymore.

The bastard.

* * *

Leaving her job has been cathartic in a lot of ways, but it opens the door to something Martina wasn't expecting to experience – boredom.

The last time Joey had a daytime job and left her on her own, he'd come back to find her in tears, having fallen into the mental traps of her own making without anything to distract her. That was before she'd found a medication that worked for her though, before she started actually responding to therapy. She's feeling pretty self-possessed this time, and she's determined to keep it together today and make good use of her solitude.

She cleans the kitchen, puts a few loads through the washing machine (having a husband who predominantly wears black and white and a daughter who predominantly wears black and red makes sorting the washing an easy task), cleans out the dog dirt from the back garden. She has a bath, gets some Hoovering done, dusts anything and everything.

By midday she's at a loss. The house is spotless. She's got nothing to do. Martina supposes this is where interests and hobbies come in handy. What else do you do all day when you're not working, stressing about work or despairing about one problem or another? She could crochet but she's not really in the mood. She's pulled a couple of rows together on her blanket, but she's got to make a couple more blue squares to balance it out, and she's procrastinating. She's never made them with a purpose before.

She takes out Joey's laptop, her own work one having been relinquished when she resigned (and good riddance) and has a look at a few job listings, but even considering putting in an application makes her feel a bit sick. She's not ready yet. She closes the laptop again.

When Joey walks in at half past one, Martina's so relieved she pounces on him.

'If I'd known I'd get a welcome like this,' Joey chuckles after she's kissed him ferociously, 'I'd have come home earlier. What's brought this on, eh?'

'Boredom,' Martina says, twisting closer, wrapping her arms around his waist.

'I would also have accepted _sheer joy at the return of my handsome husband_,' Joey teases, 'but I'll take it.'

* * *

She has to hand it to Joey, he cures her sense of boredom exceptionally well.

'Whatcha do with yourself all day?' he asks her afterwards, holding her against his chest and kissing the top of her head.

'Nothing,' Martina mutters. She adjusts the blankets around them, nestles closer. He's warm, and it's a bit chilly in their bedroom, and she wants nothing more than to feel his arms around her for eternity. Funny, a few months ago, she'd found him holding her irritating, stressful even. He's done her head in more than ever since she started treatment, pushing her about, playing the bad guy and forcing her to attend her sessions and take her medication when she doesn't feel like it and generally driving her up the wall – and yet right now, she doesn't want him anywhere but by her side.

'You're not going back out tomorrow, are yer?'

'Fraid so, sweetheart. 'Fraid so.'

Martina groans.

'We'll find summat to keep you goin',' Joey hugs her to him. And then he pulls back, looks at her, and she can practically see a little lightbulb appear over his head.

'You wouldn't be interested in givin' me a hand, would you? I need a second person to pull this job off. Me mate backed out and our Jack's not free.'

Martina's mouth drops open.

'What, you mean come with you on one of your shady jobs? You want _me_ to help you with _that?!_ After I spent thirty years workin' _against_ the likes of your devious little schemes?'

Joey grins. 'Yeah.'

Martina rolls her eyes, but she can feel her mouth trying to form a smirk. And she's surprised by her own response.

'All right, then.'

Joey is thrilled. 'We'll make a proper Boswell of you yet, sunshine,' he says, leaning over her and kissing her, 'we'll make a proper Boswell of you yet.'

'I wouldn't count on that, love.' She chuckles as Joey kisses her neck, hands sliding down her body, and she's losing her train of thought and slipping back into the bliss of a few moments ago when Joey sits up suddenly.

'Shit.'

'What?'

'It's three o'clock.' He leaps out of bed.

'Oh, God.' Martina is up and by his side in seconds, helping him do up his shirt. Good thing Joey noticed or Belle might have come home to something she'd rather not witness.

They're downstairs and decent by the time Belle wanders in, leaving a trail behind her as her school things fall out of her satchel one by one. Martina would normally tell her to pick up after herself, but right now she's so happy to see her she simply gets up and wraps her arms around her until Belle whines out a _gerooofff_ and retreats up to her room.

* * *

Years of sitting behind a social security counter, pitting her wits against everything thrown her way, have made Martina into a natural negotiator. She not only talks the bloke paying Joey out of trying to rip him off, but she bumps up their fee as well, and it's surreal seeing prim and proper little DHSS lady Martina making dodgy negotiations, but there's something about the situation that makes Joey smile. She'd been a pretty good little partner in – not crime per se; today's job was technically legal, just tax-free – a good little partner to work with, had followed his instructions pretty well, and they got the job done in record time.

'Don't think I'm gonna help you do yer dirty work all the time, Mister Boswell,' Martina says as they get back in the Jag. 'I just needed something to distract me from me boredom.'

'Fancy a trip to Adrian's? We'll get you bored enough to agree to help next time.'

'Don't try it. If I 'ave to listen to another dreary poem at your behest, the outcome'll more likely be physical pain inflicted on your squashy parts.'

But she's smiling as she does up her seatbelt, and Joey realises something profound. Martina has always claimed to know what he's up to, but for him to actually take her with him, introduce her to his world this way, has pulled down a barrier he didn't know was there.

'What are you smirking at?' Martina demands.

'Oh, just…' Joey chuckes to himself. 'Ponderin' the mysteries of life, sweetheart.'

He sees her arch an eyebrow in his mirror.

'Such as?'

'All these times we could have worked together instead of against each other. You know, with your charm and my academics…'

'—we already live in Gateacre.'

'—we could go into business together,' Joey finishes instead.

'Don't get yer hopes up, Mister Boswell,' Martina shakes her head. 'We are not going into business, so get that idea out of yer 'ead before it makes a home in there. '

But as he's steering them toward home she reaches out, closes her hand over his on the steering wheel and smiles at him, the look on her face heart-meltingly lovely.

* * *

'What are you up to?'

Martina eyes her daughter suspiciously. Annabelle is pretending to read, but her eyes haven't been on her book this whole time. She's watching Martina in a way that sends suspicion running down the ex-DHSS lady's spine like a shiver.

'Stop it,' Martina chides.

'Stop what?'

'Stop starin' at me. What d'you want?'

'Will you show me how to do that?'

Martina frowns. 'Do what?'

Annabelle jerks her head in the direction of Martina's hands.

'What, crochet?'

'Yeah.' Belle nods too eagerly.

'Are you trying to get out of readin' that book?'

'It's _dull_,' Annabelle whines.

'You'll have to read a lot of dull things in your life, love. You'd better get used to it.'

She may as well not have spoken. Belle's come over and is sitting beside her now.

'_Annabelle_, just read the bloody book and get it over with.'

'Yeah, but it won't _be_ over with,' Belle grumbles. 'I'll have to do an essay on it, and then I'll have an _exam_ on it…'

'Then you'd better get it read, hadn't yer?'

Annabelle looks at her with pleading eyes.

'Oh, all right. Don't turn that Boswell manipulation on me. I'll show yer – for _half an hour, _mind – and then you are going to sit there in that chair until you've read at least three chapters of that book, even if it means you're there til midnight. Do you hear me?'

'Great.' Belle snuggles closer to her, and Martina knows she's trying to procrastinate but she senses there's something more to it. Belle's been worried about her. Martina has tried her best to hide the worst of this from her, but Annabelle (Boswell that she is) wasn't born yesterday. She's seen her Mam suffer through the side effects of four different antidepressants, heard the rows between her and Joey, spotted Martina crying even when she's tried to hide it. And she wants to be with her now, spend time with her. Do something nice together.

Martina shakes her head for appearances' sake, but she pulls a spare hook from her bag and a bit of wool, starts a square off, shows Belle how to do a double stitch and helps her finish off a round.

'Did you learn this from your Mam as well?'

'I did.' Martina is thoughtful. 'I was prob'ly your age, you know.'

She used to sit and sew with her Mam as well, around the same time. She'd been trying to give her something to do, Martina realises now, to make her feel better because Roger had just been chucked out of home. And Martina had tried, in her way, to help her when she'd taken in extra sewing to help pay off Martina's dad's latest gambling losses.

'God, I'd forgotten,' she murmurs to herself. It's strange, she'd always thought you were supposed to block out bad memories, but it seems all these years she'd been blocking out the nicer things.

'You know why that is, don't you?' Belle has a grin in her voice and Martina knows a facetious comment is coming her way. Presumably about her age.

'Annabelle, if you say what I think you're gonna say, you're in trouble.'

Belle inches closer and leans against her side. Martina is aware the half hour is nearly up, that she's supposed to be reminding Belle of her end of the bargain and pushing her to get her schoolwork done, but the moment is so nice that she lets it go, kisses the top of Annabelle's head and pretends not to notice when Belle keeps going and ignores the time.

Joey comes in two hours later and they're still at it.

* * *

Martina insists, whenever Joey brings it up, that she is not _happy_. It's just that her brain won't let her focus on being miserable enough to stop functioning. And so she might as well get on with it.

Joey doesn't really understand this, but whatever's happening seems to be a good thing, as far as he's concerned. It's as if petals of her are opening up, and Joey watches her blossom tentatively, stumbling shakily in the right direction. He's not sure why, but he thinks that row they had – explosive, destructive, no punches pulled, no words minced, everything laid out excruciatingly – has somehow brought them round a corner. She's stopped fighting him – and having the two of them on the same page, united rather than divided, working towards something together rather than battling over it, is a good start. And so Joey keeps gently guiding her and finds himself rejoicing in the little things, the little ways that something – therapy, antidepressants, a general purging of everything that's been eating at her – is starting to breathe flutters of life into her again.

She laughs at the television for the first time…_ever_, one night, and it surprises Joey so much he nearly falls out of his seat.

An old _Are You Being Served?_ episode is on, which he was barely paying attention to, which he didn't realise Martina was actually watching and not just leaving on in the background until now.

'May I enquire what has amused Miss Martina so?'

'It's you,' she grins, inclining her head towards the television.

'What, Mister Lucas?'

'_Because of the oil shortage we're using more coal to make electricity. And we need the electricity to boil our electric kettles to make the hot water for our hot water bottles to keep our feet warm. If you wear these novelty foot warmers, you don't need a hot water bottle to keep your feet warm, thereby saving electricity and saving the fuel our country so desperately needs.'_

'Oh, God,' Martina is laughing again. 'Reminds me of when you came to me counter, and you'd make up some elaborate little excuse to explain why you'd racked up such an enormous heating bill…Joey…he's _you! _I never noticed it before, but…_God, _Joey…he's just a fictional version of _you!_'

'Where _do_ you get these ideas from?!'

Martina flops sideways into him, still laughing, her head in his lap, and though Joey would prefer to argue with her for the sake of his image, he hasn't seen her this happy about nothing in particular in a long time, and so he lets himself laugh at his own expense too.

A couple of weeks later, she brings him a scarf she's crocheted for him. It's pretty basic, all one colour, but the love in it is so powerful, and the fact that she's actually sat down and _made something_ of her own free will is so overwhelmingly wonderful that Joey puts it on with pride.

'I didn't expect you to actually wear it,' Martina rolls her eyes.

'I like it, though,' Joey insists. 'I look the business in it.'

She rolls her eyes at him again, but he can see she's made up.

* * *

She decides to get baptised, even though she still believes the basic principles of Christianity are the same regardless of which church you go to. Still, it would be nice to choose a side, to belong to one or the other after years of sitting on the fence. And of course, Martina chooses Catholicism, because despite always saying she was out to get the Boswells, for many years now she's stood beside them, as one of them. It's nice for that to be official.

She hadn't banked on the fact that that would mean relentless hugs and kisses and exclamations from Nellie Boswell. Her mother-in-law is overjoyed she's finally _seen sense_ and starts banging on about how Joey should get an annulment from Roxy and they should get married again _properly,_ now Martina is a real Catholic.

(They both ignore her. Joey had his marriage to Roxy annulled on the quiet almost as soon as the divorce came through; not difficult given Roxy had been married already; but had chosen to marry Martina in a Proddy church anyway. She doesn't tell Nellie this, though. If Joey hasn't mentioned it, he has his reasons.)

She'd intended to keep it a small, intimate affair, just Joey, Belle and both their Mams, but Nellie Boswell hearing means that word spreads and every damn Boswell turns up anyway, because Heaven forbid they're apart for one afternoon.

Martina feels the water on her head and something strange comes over her. She raises her head, feeling the touch of something holy and wonderful, and sees her family – her bloody enormous, infuriating but bloody wonderful family – all around her, and suddenly she realises what Joey was talking about earlier. She'd never experienced it before, but now, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she understands.

Some days, it just feels good to be alive.

* * *

Adrian quietly takes her aside outside the church afterwards.

'If you need a sponsor when you get Confirmed,' he says, touching her shoulder, which surprises her a bit, because Adrian never touches her, 'I'd be happy to.'

Martina hadn't even thought that far ahead, but she's moved by the gesture. She and Adrian have been forced to interact over the years, through Joey, through the fact that Davey and Belle were inseparable growing up. They have a wary camaraderie, but it's never really graduated into anything more than that, namely because Adrian refuses to see her as anything more than a terrifying dragon out to get him, even when the other Boswells have eventually accepted she isn't.

Now, though. There's a different look in his face, one she's never seen before.

'And I thought you didn't like me,' she says just to clock his reaction. Much to her surprise, he doesn't flinch.

'It wasn't a question of not liking, it was…' he can't think of how to put it tactfully, 'caution.'

Martina snorts.

'But since you've left the DWP, you're…different. You're more…' he makes a gesture with his hands.

'– soft.'

'– _happy.'_ Adrian smiles at his own choice of words, even though they're not particularly intellectual or poetic. 'You're at peace with yourself.'

'I think that's a bit of a leap,' Martina says. 'I just want to…make the most of the life I have left.'

'See, things like that, you'd have never said before. You were so clouded in your own resentment, it was as if you couldn't see the beauty in anything.' Adrian kisses her, which startles her a little. 'Welcome to the beautiful world.'

'It's okay,' Martina says stubbornly. 'Would be better without poetics in it.'

'And here's me getting my hopes up you might stop making fun of my poetry evenings.'

Martina grins in spite of herself. 'That'll never happen, love.'

'Joey was so proud of you today,' Adrian says. 'I could see it just shining from his face.'

'Just because I decided not to be a Proddy?' she teases.

'It's more than that. It's…acceptance. Of the life you have. Of him. Of God. Of us…the family…that you're one of us.._._it's trust. He likes all that, does Joey. All he's ever wanted for you is to see you happy in life.'

And then he hugs her and pulls back to shake her hand, and this is all becoming a bit too much for her, all this deep and meaningful stuff.

'I know,' she says weakly.

Adrian mercifully moves on, but then the rest of the family descend upon her one by one, so she doesn't really have a chance to step back and reflect.

'You've left the club, kid,' Jack says when he claps her on the back.

'What club?'

'The life is bleak and meaningless club. You were like me. Disillusioned. Now the sun's shining out your arse.'

'Well, I'm on antidepressants, you see. The world looks a bit different when you're being drugged into thinkin' it does.'

They grin.

'Good for you, kid.' He claps her on the shoulder. 'Good for you.'

'And you?'

Jack shrugs away her concern. 'Ticker's fine for the moment. Leonora's got me on all this healthy crap _still_. It's so clean you can feel your arteries wake up again, you know. God I miss _food_. Real food, not rabbit food. Of all the things I could've got from me dad, it had to be this.'

'You're alive, though.' Martina touches his arm.

'You really are on drugs, aren't yer? Not like you to be sayin' appreciate life.'

'Yeah, well,' Martina shrugs. 'Do us a favour, Jack, won't yer?'

'Favour?' Jack is visibly taken aback. 'Depends what it is.'

'Talk to Joey about yer heart. And, er…' she smiles wryly, 'play it up a bit. What it felt like. Give 'im a bit of a scare. He eats so much _cake_, I'm worried he'll be next if he doesn't take a bit more care.'

'He looks okay. Bit o' middle aged spread, but he's not _fat.' _Jack smiles wryly down at himself; several stone heavier than he used to be. 'Not like me.'

'Yeah, but what do his insides look like?' Martina's mouth twists. 'His arteries? I do worry.'

'I hear yer, kid. I hear yer.'

Oswald comes up afterwards, and she's not surprised to see him, even though he's had to come over to the other side for a day. Despite the fact that Aveline misguidedly thinks they flirt and has never forgiven Martina for it, the truth is, Oswald been an incredibly good friend to her over the years. Being close to God all the time makes him understanding and empathetic.

'No hard feelings, _vicar,_' she teases, holding out her hand. 'It's not you, it's me.'

Oswald shakes it, laughing to himself.

'And you know as well as I do that you'll still be down in my territory on Christmas Eve.'

Martina smiles, because she will. What she believes hasn't changed. Oswald is one of the few people who understood that. It's why she wanted him to be the one to marry her and Joey in the first place.

'You're not going to change. You've just acquired… a club membership now.'

'And you know as well as I do,' she says, her smile stretching, 'that if I have to go down one path, I'm going with my husband.'

This last comment is as much for Aveline's benefit as anything. Martina knows she's standing behind Oswald, quietly cross, even though it's plain as day there's nothing in this conversation worth being suspicious about.

'I wouldn't expect anything less of you.'

'Oh, for God's sake, Aveline,' Martina says eventually, when she's had enough of Aveline's glaring. She embraces her, whether Aveline likes it or not, and enjoys the squeak her sister-in-law produces. She may not be a civil servant anymore but when it comes to frightening people, she's still _got it_.

'For the last time, I'm not interested in good boys. Far too dull. If I were, d'you think I would've married Joey?'

'Eh – what are you insinuating, there, sweetheart?' She hears Joey's voice in her ear, feels his arms wrap around her waist from behind.

'You know what I'm insinuating.' Martina leans back into him, mainly just to prove a point. '_Crook.'_

'Eh,' Aveline's eyes widen, 'Our Joey's a good, decent, upright, lovin' man!' She's nodding her head as she enunciates each word, her ridiculous hairstyle bobbing. She's undoubtedly about to launch into some anecdote about the little animals Joey has rescued over the years, her usual testament to Joey's goodness (Martina's heard it all before).

'You think I don't know that?'

Aveline falters.

'You think I don't see every day how good and loving our Joey is?'

This comment is for Joey, even though it's directed at Aveline. A little reminder that she knows he cares.

Joey turns her around to face him, pulls her tighter into his arms, and Oswald, sensing the beginnings of a tender moment, tactfully guides Aveline away.

'Our mams seem to be gettin' on, don't they?'

Martina nods in agreement, stealing a glance at them. They're immersed in conversation, a surreal sight. Belle's got an arm round each of them, and seems to be obnoxiously trying to insert herself into their discussion.

'I may have done something devious to bring about that one,' she admits.

'Oh, yeah? And what did you do that's so devious?'

'Your Mam's always known one of me parents was Catholic and one was Protestant…I may have been a bit misleading about which way round that was.'

'Martina Boswell,' Joey's chide sounds too affectionate to be sincere, 'makin' dodgy deals with me, twisting the facts to your advantage…all these years you were chastising me for supposedly bein' devious, and all the time you aspired to _be_ me, didn't yer?'

'Don't feed that ego of yours prematurely, Mister Boswell,' she scoffs, though she can't resist embracing him again. 'Just because I've let me standards slip does not mean I've been harbouring any secret admiration for your sneaky little schemes. And because I know you're about to bring it up again, I am_ not _going into business with you. '

Joey laughs into the top of her head. 'Methinks she doth protest too much.'

He's got her stupid scarf on again, she notices, over the top of his suit and coat.

'That'll need washing at some point, you know.'

'Then I'll wash it, sunshine. I'll wash it.'

'I didn't make it for you to ponce around in all the time. It was just symbolic.'

'Oh, I know. And I am _symbolically_ wearin' it as a gesture of my undying love.'

'And I might give you a _symbolic_ clout round the chops if you don't stop doing me head in.' Martina lunges at him. 'Take it off.'

'Resorting to physical force, I see. Just another sign you will never win an argument against me.'

Martina shakes her head fondly. She can feel the warmth in her smile (it may just be the sun on her face, but she'd like to think it's her, all the same).

'Oh, I might, Mister Boswell, one day. I might.'

* * *

**Yeah the row could have been a chapter by itself but...I sort of like that there was a theme running through this one of her relationship with Joey repairing, so I thought I'd keep it all together for the full effect. **

**Only one more chapter to go now.**


	12. Epilogue

**And we've arrived at the final chapter. As usual, I own noting but owe a debt of gratitude to Carla Lane for creating the magnificence that is Bread (even if the ending broke my heart). Original Joey, no particular message, and so on. This one comes a bit full circle with the first chapter. **

* * *

**Epilogue**

**1983**

**(The following Tuesday)**

He's back again. That bloody man. Sauntering in _seven hours late_ in all his macho leather like nothing matters, like he hasn't just ignored his appointment to sign-on, even though she'd ripped into him last time for trying to worm his way out of it.

Just her luck. She was about to go home and wallow about the rough day she's had, and now _he's_ here, standing in the doorway, one leg crossed over the other in a far too casual pose for someone who has done exactly what he was told not to.

She's only met him the once, but she doesn't need more than a few minutes with him to see he's one of _those_ ones. One of those claimants who seems designed with making your life a living hell in mind. Blatant committer of benefit fraud, clever and smarmy enough to talk his way out of the line of suspicion, with an ego and pseudo-charm and false flattery just to cap the whole, irritating package off.

Deceitful, untrustworthy bastard.

Martina turns back to packing up, staring resolutely away from him.

'Ten o'clock, I seem to recall saying,' she growls, shoving two plastic chairs in a stack so angrily they might crack. 'Not _ten to five_.'

'As I mentioned on my last visit to this establishment,' Joey Boswell is too blithely cheery for someone in trouble, 'when I hear the call of me family in need, I'm gonna answer it, appointment or no appointment.'

'And as _I_ mentioned on your last visit to this establishment,' she mimics, 'if you want something for nothing, you _do as you're told_.'

'If I were to, let's say, have circumstances beyond my control preventin' me from coming when I was _told_,' he's really trying it on, pushing her patience to its limits, 'I would hope there would be a shred of understanding from a lovely lady such as yourself, which might spur you to let me sign-on _now_ instead.'

'And as you may be able to notice from this _empty room_,' she gestures around her, 'we're _closed_. You've missed your window.'

_And serve you right._

'You could throw me a bone just this once,' Joey has the nerve to say, and Martina turns around and looks him right in the eye, intent on giving him a piece of her mind for his ridiculous assumption that she would _ever_ bend regulations for someone who has done nothing but be uncooperative.

He's got minxish, playful eyes. Greenish with a little bit of a naughty twinkle in them. Likely because he's probably out there doing naughty things she'd rather not know about. And she'd better stop looking at his face, because he's attractive in that bad-boy, tall-dark-and-handsome sort of way that makes her go all fluttery (technically tall, _blond_ and handsome, but she can tell from his roots it's not real; take all that bleach away and he would definitely be dark), but he's also quite possibly the most obnoxious person she has ever encountered and that diminishes some of her attraction again.

'Don't get your hopes up, Flash.'

'_Joey,_' he insists. '_Joey Boswell.'_

'I _know _your name,' Martina snaps. 'You announced it over a loud hailer last time you were here.'

'You callin' me a spiv, then, Martina?'

'That's _exactly_ what I'm calling you.' She probably shouldn't, but someone like Joey Boswell deserves no politeness from her.

'Bit unprofessional, that, isn't it?'

'You can talk about being professional, _Mister Boswell,'_ her hands are on her hips, 'when you are one. Given you're down here pleading destitution, it's quite clear you are not.'

She hesitates.

'Unless there's something you wanna tell me?'

That's got him. She sees him freeze, debate opening his gob and delivering what he no doubt thinks is some sort of witty comment, sees a sliver of guilt cross his face that makes him think better of it. He's definitely up to something. He doesn't want to blow his cover.

Hmm. This might be worth investigating at some point. There would be something tremendously satisfying about watching him crash and burn, about finding out exactly what he's doing and pulling the rug out from underneath him. In which case, Martina decides, infuriating or not, she'd better keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and all that.

She reaches over her desk, pulls a form across it.

'Fill that in.'

Joey leans over her to do so, his aftershave infuriatingly nice, mingling quite well with the smell of all that genuine leather. She has to take a step back to clear her head.

He gives her a wolfish grin she can only imagine spells trouble, and then a horrible tinny tune issues from the end of his pen.

Oh, God. She's always hated novelty musical pens – or novelty musical _anything_, turning ordinary tasks into a noisy nuisance – and it's quite clear, from the way Joey steals a glance at her face and snickers to himself, that his choice of writing implement is _deliberately_ to wind her up.

Martina glares as hard as she possibly can.

'For you.' Joey proffers the form, the music mercifully stopping as soon as his boastfully swirly signature is finished. She snatches it from him, creasing it unintentionally in her haste to get rid of him.

'And _thank you_, for your kindness and understanding towards me plight, and for excusin' my most unintentional lateness.'

That last comment just drives her up the wall.

'If you _ever_ do this again,' Martina makes her voice as dangerous as she possibly can, speaks through gritted teeth, 'if you _dare_ turn up this late again, if you put another _toe_ out of line in my department, then I will personally make sure you regret it for the _rest of your life_.'

'I must admit, I look forward to findin' out what you _personally_ are going to do to me,' Joey winks at her, the innuendo taking her off-guard, causing her to lose her footing in the conversation.

'_Get out_.'

He laughs, a lovely ringing sound that nonetheless grates on her, and swaggers back off towards the door, hesitating just as it seems he was finally about to go away.

'You know,' he says, turning back around, striking a pose that makes her want to either guffaw or throw something at him, 'beneath that austere stance and that cross little face, there's a generous soul screamin' to get out, isn't there? If I thought you wouldn't swoon dead away, you know what I'd do?'

'I don't think I want to hear this.'

'I'd marry you and take you away from all this.'

Martina bristles, the words another shockwave through her, partially because of an unwitting dose of flattery, a bigger part astounded at his sheer bloody gall.

It's nowhere near the gall he displays the following week though. Turning up outside the building in – she might've known – a _Jaguar_, which he is flashing around blatantly in front of her, clearly intent on getting a rise out of her. Standing around leaning against it – posing – he's making her grind her teeth in annoyance now, and Martina tries to hang back a bit, to avoid any confrontation, then decides instead she'll just walk past without giving him the satisfaction of a reaction – then her anger gives way, and she decides she _will_ confront him after all.

'I can _see you!'_ she hollers down the stairs at him, her self-control momentarily lost. God, the_ nerve _of him! That car looks like it costs more than she earns in two years.

'Can you, sweetheart? Or am I just a figment of your imagination?'

'I'm gonna get you, you know,' Martina says through her teeth. He can't hear from this distance, but no matter. 'I'm gonna find out every last little thing you're up to, and I'm going to bring down a tonne of legal bricks down on your head. Mark my words.'

Joey Boswell winks, blows her a kiss and then gets in his Jaguar and glides away from her as if he were doing nothing wrong.

Martina glares after him, muttering curses under her breath until his car is out of sight.

* * *

**2011 **

Martina doesn't get another job. She doesn't want one, and nobody expects her to have to put herself through that again. They're all in agreement. She's been through enough.

She has plenty to do, though – she's got the house and the garden, the odd dodgy to do with Joey when she feels up for it (though she draws a line at _going into business_ with him; it's never going to happen); she's got Annabelle to look after when she's not at school. She's got her Mam; she finds herself spending more time with her than ever before and relishing every moment.

And when he's not out on jobs of his own, she's got Joey. Now she's not working, he works more days as well as nights, taking even boring decorating jobs because, he assures her, he owes her a bit of hard labour after the lot she put in, and as she said years ago, they need to keep up some pretence of Belle having one parent doing honest work.

He takes his name off the list at the DWP (long overdue, considering he hasn't really needed Jobseekers for many years) relies only on his little lucrative schemes, and they're lucrative enough, Martina finds. Now she doesn't need to separate her home life from her professional one, he places his laptop in her lap one morning, goes to his online bank account and reveals its contents to her to reassure her they'll be all right. And though she's flabbergasted by the enormous sum he's got in there (and this is only one of five accounts, apparently), she pretends to shrug it off. Because, well, she does have a reputation to maintain after all. She's always pretended to be unimpressed by Joey's accoutrements.

And when he's not taking little extra jobs for appearances' sake, and to make it up to her for all the years she suffered, he does his utmost to make sure she enjoys her days. Joey kisses her awake in the morning, even if he's been out all night doing his less savoury jobs and needs to rest, he devises new things to do and outings for her every week, he sleeps holding her against his chest, always comforting her when she awakes in tears or screaming from a nightmare that contains a mix of Roger, Shifty and her own fears about herself. He fills her life up, seeping into every crack that's formed in her countenance, plastering over every scar, holding the skin together while she works towards healing. And every time she trudges back to the psychologist he's there, if not in the room with her, waiting for her, ready to hold her hand and kiss away any residual negative feelings from the visit.

It's just as it was when they first married. Yes, she still has demons, and there are moments when she still can't face the morning. But Joey is there when she needs a shoulder, he listens when she needs to vent, he takes the brunt of her abuse when she's at her least logical and starts taking it out on him. And though she does still hit those low points, she comes back. She has a reason to. And the low points, she's noticed, are beginning to space themselves further apart, the contented gaps in between them broadening. She may never be rid of them for good, but if she can get them down to a manageable level, well, that'll do. And she won't be alone in doing so.

They're sitting outside this morning as they used to do as newlyweds, drinking tea curled against each other on the ancient garden bench that had come with the house, now mossy and dilapidated to the point where it would be viable to replace it, only neither of them want to. They're wrapped in the blanket Martina finally finished darning in this morning, her stress-induced squares repurposed into something that's brought her, she has to admit, a great sense of accomplishment. Martina's legs are draped across Joey's lap; she relaxes, basks in his company, because there's no-one else around to see her, and if she simply wants to lay back and depend on him, who's to stop her? She's tried to be her own strength for so long, but sometimes, even the ostensibly strong need help. Even the seemingly tough, impenetrable ones need someone to curl into when the going gets rough, to give the burden to for a time while they're picking themselves up.

'D'you remember,' she asks absently, 'when we first met?'

Joey chuckles into his cup. 'Course I do. I'd never seen such a vision of loveliness, and you were stunned by the epitome of masculinity you were faced with.'

She snorts. 'I don't think it was quite like that. You were tryin' to charm me to get benefits and I couldn't stand you.'

'Ah, but you admitted when we got engaged you'd fancied me back then.'

'Under _duress_, Joey Boswell; I told yer – that doesn't count!'

Joey tickles her and she shrieks, thankfully able to save her tea from spilling everywhere.

'If you do that again – ' she warns.

'You'll what?' Out of nowhere, his arms are around her so tightly she can't move.

'I'll – think of something.'

Joey roars with laughter. 'Losin' your touch a bit, there, aren't you? Forgettin' how to play Miss Frosty Face now you're away from that counter.'

He hesitates.

'Or perhaps you're just not out to get me anymore.'

'Hmm.'

Martina wrinkles her nose thoughtfully.

'Don't gloat, but… I've sort of gone off the idea.'

He laughs again. 'Took you long enough.'

She's not sure if he intended a double meaning to his words, but she takes one from it all the same. She's not out to get him, not in the _I'm going to find out what you're up to, Mister Boswell_ type way – the fact that she helps him with his shady jobs is proof enough of that.

But it's more than that. She's not out to prove she can't trust him, either. She's not trying to sabotage what they have, keeping pieces of herself away from him to protect herself emotionally. She doesn't lay awake at night afraid he'll be gone.

Something in her head is finally at rest where he's concerned.

She'd always thought of her mind – even her life, when she was in worse moods – as a time-bomb, ticking away, ready to send her careening into the mires of hopelessness forever, the fuse shortening every time she took another strain. But she's beginning to realise something now.

It might be daft, and she might wake up tomorrow and dispense with the idea, crawling back under the blankets and bemoaning the misery of life (and no doubt she will at some point; she did yesterday). But right at this moment, while she's in a reasonably good mood, she can't help but consider the possibility.

She might, possibly, maybe ... _trust_ Joey. Properly, this time. Wholeheartedly. Because Joey saw how she was beneath her frosty exterior, the defensive layers under it and the hurt, anguished layers beneath those. He saw someone that transcended all that, and he's fought hard to keep her with him, keep that person alive. He's reached into the mess of her mind and grabbed hold of her, tried to put her back together again.

And in spite of everything, he's still here. She's verbally attacked him, pushed him away, shown him the worst sides of her, placed the most vulnerable pieces of her in his hands. Taken the risk and depended on him when she needed someone the most. And Joey has borne it all and _stayed_.

And though she knows she's got more black clouds ahead, feeling for the first time in her life that she's not completely alone might just be enough – for now – to keep pushing through.

* * *

**Well, I couldn't really end this with 'and she lived happily ever after', because that's not really realistic, so the best you get is 'and she was better able to cope some of the time.' She's getting there, though. **

**That's also the end of this universe, unless I decide to ever finish one of the million half-written fics about other Boswell family members I've started (and I may at some point, but for now I've got other universes I want to play with).**

**And just on a side note, seeing as this universe won't go any further forward in time: yes, Martina does eventually go into business with Joey. Because of course she does. Joey always wears her down in the end.**


End file.
